194 



HISTORY OF MEXICO. 



which they imagined themfelves fecure againft all the 

 dangers of the journey. As foon as they arrived at any 

 houfe where they made a hah, they affembled and tied 

 all the flicks together and worfhipped them ; and twice 

 or thrice, during the night, they drew blood from 

 themfelves in honour of that god. All the time that a 

 merchant was abfent from home, his wife and children 

 did not wafli their heads, although they bathed, except- 

 ing once every eighty days, not only to teflify their re* 

 gret of his abfence, but alfo by that fpecies of mortifica- 

 tion to procure the protection of their gods. When 

 any of the merchants died on their journey, advice of his 

 death was immediately fent to the oldeft merchants of 

 his native country, and they communicated it to his re- 

 lations and kindred, who immediately formed an imper- 

 fect flame of wood to reprefent the deceafed, to which 

 they paid all the/uneral honours which they would have 

 done to the real dead body. 



For the convenience of merchants, and other travel- 

 lers, there were public roads, which were repaired every 

 year after the rainy feafon. They had likewife in the 

 mountains and uninhabited places, houfes erected for the 

 reception of travellers, and bridges, and other veffels for 

 paffing rivers. Their veffels were oblong and flat-bot- 

 tomed, without keel, malls, or fails, or any other thing 

 to guide them but oars. They were of various fizes. 

 The fmalleft could hardly hold two or three people, the 

 largefl could carry upwards of thirty. Many of them 

 were made of one lingle trunk of a tree. The number 

 of thofe who were continually traversing the Mexican 

 lake, exceeded, according to the account of ancient hif- 

 torians fifty thoufand. Befides the veffels, or flats, they 

 made ufe of a particular machine to pafs rivers, which 



was 



