Page:Vol 3 History of Mexico by H H Bancroft.djvu/231

Rh in the harbor, supplied an excellent material, and came into general use. Before this time the houses were built for the most part of wood, although during the preceding century and a half the city had several times been partly destroyed by fire.

The streets of Vera Cruz were regularly laid out, their direction corresponding with that of the cardinal points of the compass. Their pavement was commenced in 1765 and completed in 1776. In April of the following year they were lighted for the first time by order of the municipality. In 1790 a cemetery was opened outside the walls of the city, and by order of the viceroy the burial of the dead in church vaults was forbidden. To this practice and to the scantiness and poor quality of the water may be attributed in part the pestilences from which the inhabitants were seldom free. The rich obtained their supply from cisterns built on their own premises, the poor from an aqueduct which was usually empty during two or three months in the year, when they were dependent on a single well sunk near the bastion of Santa Bárbara. Another cause of the prevalence of disease was the overcrowding of the houses, which were packed so closely together in the poorer quarters of the town as to impede the circulation of the air.

The rains set in at Vera Cruz about the 20th of March and lasted for six months, being followed by violent north-west winds which continued almost throughout the dry season, raising the sand in such clouds as often to obstruct the sight and render breathing difficult. September and October were the most unhealthy months, and it was then that the sickness