Page:About Mexico - Past and Present.djvu/107

Rh country is sold in the markets, comprising articles so numerous that to avoid prolixity, and because their names are not retained in my memory or are unknown to me, I shall not attempt to enumerate them. Each kind of merchandise is sold in a particular street or quarter, assigned to it exclusively, and thus the best order is preserved.

"They sell everything by number or measure—at least, so far, we have not observed them to sell anything by weight. There is a building in the great square that is used as an audience-house, where ten or twelve persons, who are magistrates, sit and decide all controversies that arise in the market and order delinquents to be punished. In the same square there are other persons, who go constantly about among the people, observing what is sold and the measures used in selling, and they have been seen to break measures that were not true."

The Mexicans appear to have been a very cleanly people. Abundant provision was made in the cities for bathing. Great basins cut in stone, with steps leading down to the water, are still found. In many places there were underground reservoirs for rain-water.

Fountains and waterfalls were included in their landscape-gardening—an art that seems to have reached a perfection which European gardeners of that age could not exceed. Cortez describes "a garden near Mexico which was the largest, most beautiful and refreshing that I ever beheld. It is two leagues in circuit, and through the middle of it flows a fine stream of water. At intervals of about two bow-shots are houses, with beds of flowers, together with a profusion of herbs and odoriferous plants." The botanical gardens contained specimens of every plant to be found in that end of the