HISTORY OF MEXICO. 



191 



chair-makers of Quauhtitlan, the florifts of Xochimilco, 

 all aifembled there. 



Their commerce was not only carried on by way of 

 exchange, as many authors report, but likewife by 

 means of real purchafe and fale. They have five kinds 

 of real money, though it was not coined, which ferved 

 them as a price to purchafe whatever they wanted. The 

 firfl was a certain fpecies of cacao, different from that 

 which they ufed in their daily drink, which was in con- 

 ftant circulation through the hands of traders, as our 

 money is amongft us. They counted the cacao by Xi- 

 quipilli) (this as we have before obferved, was equal to 

 eight thoufand), and to fave the trouble of counting 

 them when the merchandize was of great value, they 

 reckoned them by facks, every fack having been reckon- 

 ed to contain three xiquipilli^ or twenty-four thoufand 

 nuts. The fecond kind of money was certain fmali 

 cloths of cotton, which they called patolquachtli, as be- 

 ing folely deftined for the purchafe of merchandizes which 

 were immedately necelTary. The third fpecies of money 

 was gold in dufl, contained in goofe-quills, which by 

 being tranfparent, fliewed the precious metal which filled 

 them, and in proportion to their fize were of greater or 

 lefs value. The fourth which moft refembled coined 

 money, was made of pieces of copper in the form of a T, 

 and was employed in purchafes of little value. The 

 fifth, of which mention is made by Cortes, in his 

 lafl letter to the emperor Charles the Vth, confifted of 

 thin pieces of tin. 



They fold and exchanged merchandizes by number 

 and meafure; but we do not know that they made ufe of 

 weights, either becaufe they thought them liable to 

 frauds, as fome authors have faid, or becaufe they did 



not 



