A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels — Volume 04 - Arranged in Systematic Order: Forming a Complete History of the Origin and Progress of Navigation, Discovery, and Commerce, by Sea and Land, from the Earliest Ages to the Present Time by Robert Kerr
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page 63 of 643 (09%)
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tables and benches, fire-wood, paper, hollow canes filled with tobacco and
liquid amber ready for smoking, copper axes, working tools of various kinds, wooden vessels richly painted, and the like. In another part many women sold fish, and small loaves of a kind of mud taken out of the lake resembling cheese. The makers of stone blades were employed in shaping them out of the rough materials. The dealers in gold had the native metal in grains as it comes from the mines, in transparent tubes or quills, so that it could easily be seen; and the gold was valued at so many mantles, or so many xiquipils of cocoa nuts, in proportion to the size of the quills. The great square was enclosed all round by piazas, under which there were great stores of grain, and shops for various kinds of goods. On the borders of the adjoining canals there were boats loaded with human ordure, used in tanning leather, and on all the public roads there were places built of canes and thatched with straw or grass, for the convenience of passengers in order to collect this material. In one part of the square was a court of justice having three judges, and their inferior officers were employed in perambulating the market, preserving order, and inspecting the various articles. After having satisfied our curiosity in the square, we proceeded to the great temple, where we went through a number of large courts, the smallest of which seemed to me larger than the great square of Salamanca, the courts being either paved with large cut white stones, or plastered and polished, the whole very clean, and inclosed by double walls of stone and lime. On coming to the gate of the great temple, which was ascended by 114 steps, Montezuma sent six priests and two nobles to carry up Cortes, which he declined. On ascending to the summit, which consisted of a broad platform, we observed the large stones on which the victims were placed for sacrifice, near which was a monstrous figure resembling a dragon, and much blood appeared to have been recently spilt. Montezuma came out of an |
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