e, which are
as sweet as the sugar-cane; honey is also extracted from the plant
called maguey,[2] which is superior to sweet or new wine; from the same
plant they extract sugar and wine, which they also sell. Different
kinds of cotton thread {151} of all colors in skeins are exposed for
sale in one quarter of the market, which has the appearance of the silk
market at Granada, although the former is supplied more abundantly.
Painter's colors, as numerous as can be found in Spain, and as fine
shades; deer-skins dressed and undressed, dyed different colors;
earthenware of a large size and excellent quality; large and small
jars, jugs, pots, bricks, and an endless variety of vessels, all made
of fine clay, and all or most of them glazed and painted; maize or
Indian corn, in the grain, and in the form of bread, preferred in the
grain for its flavor to that of the other islands and terra firma;
pates of birds and fish; great quantities of fish, fresh, salt, cooked
and uncooked; the eggs of hens, geese and of all the other birds I have
mentioned, in great abundance, and cakes made of eggs; finally,
everything that can be found throughout the whole country is sold in
the markets, comprising articles so numerous that, to avoid prolixity
and because their names are not retained in my memory, or are unknown
to me, I shall not attempt to enumerate them. Every kind of
merchandise is sold in a particular street or quarter assigned to it
exclusively, and thus the best order is preserved. They sell
everything by number or measure; at least, so far we have not observed
them to sell anything by weight. There is a building in the great
square that is used as an audience house, where ten or twelve persons,
who are magistrates, sit and decide all controversies that arise in the
market, and order delinquents to be punished. In the same square there
are other persons who go constantly about among the people observing
what is sold, and the measures used in selling; and they have been seen
to break measures that were not true.

{152}

This great city contains a large number of temples[3] or houses for
their idols, very handsome edifices, which are situated in the
different districts and the suburbs; in the principal ones religious
persons of each particular sect are constantly residing, for whose use,
beside the houses containing the idols, there are other convenient
habitations. All these persons dress in black and never cut or comb
t