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160 aqueduct which brought water to the city from Chapultepec. The Mexicans also constructed roads in various directions throughout the country, for the use of merchants, couriers, and others who travelled on state business. Such roads were narrow, of well-beaten earth, and often had a watercourse running along the side. Like the Peruvian rulers, the Mexican kings maintained a system of trained runners established at definite posts along certain roads. Messages and light burdens could be transferred long distances in a short time by this method, and we hear of three hundred miles being covered in a day.

The birth of a child was awaited with great expectancy, and the prospective mother was carefully guarded from all material and supernatural dangers. The steam-bath was an important institution in promoting ease of delivery, and invocations were made to the gods presiding over birth and creation. The child born, the midwife raised the triumph-cry of the warriors, since the woman who bore a child was regarded as the feminine counterpart of such, and congratulatory visits were paid by friends and relations. A fire was lighted in the house and kept burning for four days; great care was observed that no light from this should be taken outside the house, since it was believed that the luck of the household would follow it, and a number of other precautions were observed. The horoscope of the infant, a most important matter, was cast by a priest, and a day appointed for the baptismal ceremony, a lucky date being carefully selected. This ceremony consisted in sprinkling the infant with water, and giving it a name. Although the water was supposed to have the effect of purifying the child and fortifying it against the perils of life, yet the Mexicans held no doctrine of "original sin," in fact, the midwife addressed the newly born in the terms, "When you were created and sent into this world you were made