252 
TOWNS, PRODUCTIVE INDUSTRY, ETC. 
ayuntamento. Already it numbers sixty students, who are 
taught Latin. French, drawing, and philosophy. Ascending a 
broad staircase, at the head of which are long aisles crossing 
each other at right angles, and divided into gloomy little cells, 
we reach that part of the building which was at one time the 
convent of " Santo Domingo," now vacant, and its archives and 
inmates long since transferred to the city of Oaxaca. 
The next place of attraction is the market-place, bounding the 
northern side of the plaza or public square. Here is to be seen 
a motley group of women of all ages, sizes, and complexions. 
Indeed, all the marketing business may be said to be controlled 
by the weaker sex, who throng the long tiled shed (for such it is 
only) by hundreds at earliest dawn, startling the echoes of the 
overhanging Cerro del Tigre with their shrill and merry chat- 
ter. Here is ever a motley group of venders and buyers,, duly 
besprinkled with hogs, dogs, and donkeys, the shouts, and grunts, 
and barks, and brays of which ring on the morning air all 
through the broad plaza. Here is a girl vending cheese — 
there a dongilla, with a calabash of jonquils and poppies — 
there again a withered old woman with iguanas, with dislocated 
shoulders and broken backs, panting for a purchaser — another 
with sillas and frenos / a fifth with chicozapotes and tamarind 
water ; a sixth with huevas and chile / a seventh with corn and 
sandillas j an eighth with came and ajos y and here and there 
an Indian maid with tabacos and dulces. 
The manufactured articles of Tehuan tepee are leather, cotton 
cloth, silken sashes, shoes, hats, mats, silver-ware, saddles, horse- 
appointments, and pottery, besides a- considerable quantity of 
buckskins and soap. The town is governed by an ayuntamento, 
or town council, composed of the first, second, and third alcaldes, 
with an under magistrate elected from each of the sixteen bar- 
rios, or wards, into which the town is divided. The three first- 
named officers hold their courts daily in the town-house, and are 
assisted by a judge of the first instance, in the disposition of 
appeals and the trial of larger causes. The department of Te- 
huantepec is controlled by a governor, who exercises jurisdiction 
over all the alcaldes of all the towns and barrios, and who is 
directly responsible to the State government at Oaxaca. Police 
