Nearly every business house runs a money exchange department and the sign “_Cambia de Moneda_” (money exchange) vies in number with the “cantinas.” Even the bootblack in the hotel wanted to exchange money and followed the quotations each day as carefully as any banker. During my stay it varied from twelve and one-half to thirteen and one-fourth paper dollars for one in gold with the American eagle on it. Every merchant was anxious to secure New York, London, or Hamburg exchange. Prices of commodities varied from day to day, for, although posted in paper values, they were regulated on a gold basis. Business begins about eight in the morning and ceases about seven in the evening, but all business houses put up their shutters and close up tight for two or three hours in the middle of the day during the siesta hours. You will never know, however, unless you study the calendar, whether the stores will be open or not, for holidays and feast-days are many. There is an old saying that Spanish holidays numbered three hundred and sixty-five, not including Sundays. The principal market is a large structure in the rear of the Cathedral, and has large gates at each corner through which a line of people are passing at all times during the business hours. The entrance is nearly always obstructed by women with fruit for sale, whose presence was tolerable from the fact that they sold it extremely cheap. Every available space is filled with native merchants—mostly women—who offer for sale home and foreign goods and a great variety of indigenous fruits. Vendors outside of the enclosure suspend straw mats on poles for shelter from the torrid sun. Beneath each one sat a woman or girl with her articles for sale spread about and before her—a little fruit, some vegetables, or even some cooked meat. Inside the building one can get a three course meal of native concoctions for a few cents, or can buy the luscious fruits of the country, including oranges, bananas, zapotes, or pineapples, for a song almost. Although the place is generally crowded there is no jostling or confusion. It would be hard to find a quarrelsome or disorderly person or any one who would raise his voice above the tone of polite conversation, and even the babies—of whom there are always many—refrain from crying. The dealers are all bargainers and will invariably ask at least twice as much as they would readily accept. A look of surprise or astonishment at a price given will invariably bring the query, “What will you give?” There is no such thing as a fixed price, and yet the lowest price that will be accepted does not vary much among the different merchants, as I found on several occasions.