[59] According to Torquemada, this word expressed the number 8000 of anything, whether of cacao beans, troops, or other matters. (p. 237.) [60] Cacao nuts should be cacao beans; they were used by the Mexicans as small coin, and even to this day, according to Humboldt, they form the smallest coin among the inhabitants of New Spain. (p. 237.) [61] In the large work of Ramusio, entitled 'Raccolta delle Navigazioni e Viaggi,' there is a very interesting account of the city of Mexico. There we find that this market was about three times larger than the one at Salamanca, and surrounded by porticos. Every five days was a great market day, and from forty to fifty thousand people come to buy and sell there. (p. 238.) [62] With regard to Mexican mythology, Bernal Diaz is, perhaps, not quite so correct in general. The abbé F.S. Clavigero, who wrote a history of Mexico, in two volumes quarto, is more intelligent in this respect. (p. 239.) [63] This note refers to the idol, half hidden from view, of which Bernal Diaz has forgotten the name; it was probably the goddess Centeotl, sometimes called Tonacajohua. (p. 240.) [64] The Spanish is, "Estavan malos de bubas ó humores, les dolieron los muslas de baxar!" bubas I have everywhere translated by the general term of swellings in the groin, though it is quite evident, from the 68th letter of Petrus Martyr ab Angleria, (De Rebus Oceanicis el Novo orbe decades tres) that this disease was the syphilis, which was then spreading so dreadfully. (p. 241.) [65] The best-informed writers agree with Bernal Diaz as to the vast extent of this temple. It was so extensive, says Torquemada, that an arrow shot from a crossbow would not reach the length of one of its sides. A few lines lower he says, that each of these sides was three hundred and sixty feet long! The wall which surrounded this huge temple was entirely built of hewn stone. (p. 241.) [66] Bernal Diaz is here speaking of the Mexican picture writing or hieroglyphics. (p. 242.) CHAPTER XCIII. _How we erect a chapel and altar in our quarters with a cross on the outside; discover the treasure of Motecusuma's father; and determine to seize the monarch's person and imprison him in our quarters._ Our general and father Olmedo readily perceived that Motecusuma would never give his consent to our erecting a cross on his chief temple, nor that we should build a chapel there. We had, upon our arrival in Mexico, fitted up some tables as an altar; but we were not satisfied with this, and therefore begged of Motecusuma's house-steward to order his masons to build us a church in our quarters, who referred us to the monarch himself, upon which Cortes sent him with our interpretress and the page Orteguilla to Motecusuma, who immediately gave his consent and issued orders accordingly.[67]