defined trade-routes, and Cortés after crossing the Usumacinta came to a district, which he calls Acalan, where the inhabitants maintained trade-intercourse, mainly by boat, with Tabasco, and had trade-outposts on the Golfo Dulce and the Honduras border. In the earliest times there must have been much extended intercourse among the tribes, at any rate pendants of seashells constitute one of the most frequent ornaments seen on the monuments, and the Quiché seem to have sent an expedition on a long journey to obtain royal insignia, as mentioned above. Much of the trade was performed by direct exchange, but there were certain forms of currency. Cacao formed the "small change," and Herrera states that 200 of the nuts went to a real. Red shells and stone counters are also mentioned as money, as well as copper bells, the value of which depended on their size. Both Cogolludo and Torquemada speak of copper currency axe-blades, very thin and in the form of an inverted T, which were imported from Mexico. The latter author states that four of these, if new, were equivalent to five reales, but that damaged specimens were only valuable for melting down and went at ten to the real. Feathers were also employed as currency, and in some places cloth, as in Mexico. The system of enumeration employed in commerce was in the main vigesimal. The count proceeded by fives to twenty, by twenties to one hundred, and by hundreds to four hundred; from this point the higher numbers were reckoned in multiples of twenty.
The question of war and weapons is particularly interesting from archæological and ethnological points of view. Taken as a whole the monuments show few traces of military activity, and at some sites, notably Copan, Quirigua and Palenque, armed figures are not seen at all, for the axe which appears at the two latter sites is obviously a purely ceremonial object. To omit Yucatan for the moment, it is worthy of notice that reliefs suggesting
