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formed a rough-and-ready currency in commerce, such as textiles and maize; cacao beans also were used as a kind of "small change," and copper axe-blades were employed in certain localities, such as Oaxaca. More than one of the contemporary historians mention quills containing gold-dust as being utilized for the same purpose. The great market in Tlaltelolco moved the wonder of the conquerors; it is described as being three times as large as that of Salamanca, and one estimate places the daily attendance at twenty or twenty-five thousand persons. One of the conquerors gives the following picture of it. "On one side are the people who sell gold; near them are they who trade in jewels mounted in gold in the forms of birds and animals. On another side beads and mirrors are sold, on another, feathers and plumes of all colours for working designs on garments, and to wear in war or at festivals. Further on, stone is worked to make razors and swords, a remarkable thing which passes our understanding; of it they manufacture swords and roundels. In other places they sell cloth and men's dresses of different designs; beyond, dresses for women, and in another part footgear. A section is reserved for the sale of prepared hides of deer and other animals; elsewhere are baskets made of hair, such as all Indian women use. Cotton, grain which forms their food, bread of all kinds, pastry, fowls, and eggs are sold in different sections; and hard by they sell hares, rabbits, deer, quails, geese and ducks. Elsewhere wines of all sorts are for sale, vegetables, pepper, roots, medicinal plants, which are very numerous. in this country, fruits of all kinds, wood for building, lime and stone. In fact, each object has its appointed place. Beside this great market-place there are in other quarters other markets also where provisions may be bought." Special magistrates held courts in the market-places to settle disputes on the spot, and there were market officials similar to our inspectors of weights and mea-