1 10 VEGETABLE SUBSTANCES. 



Mexican fecundity. Might not this grain be gradu- 

 ally introduced, to the advantage of that portion of the 

 kingdom, affording to the peasantry a more nourishing 

 food than that upon which the bulk of them are now 

 constrained to subsist ? That Indian corn is well 

 qualified to form the entire food if that were ne- 

 cessary of a people, is amply exemplified by the 

 Mexicans, the great bulk of whom seldom partake of 

 any other description. 



Captain Lyon, in the narrative of his travels in 

 Mexico, has given an amusing account of the mode 

 of preparing tortillas, a species of cake made with 

 the crushed grains of maize, which is eaten hot at 

 the meals of all classes of people, the more wealthy 

 using the cakes in the way we are accustomed to use 

 wheaten bread , as an auxiliary to more nourishing 

 aliments and the peasants being fain to enjoy them 

 as a substantive food, seasoning them, when they 

 have the opportunity, by the addition of chilies 

 stewed into a kind of sauce, wherein the tortillas 

 are dipped. Simple as the art may appear of thus 

 making an unleavened cake with moistened flour, 

 some persons are found to acquire a greater degree 

 of expertness in it than others ; and so great is the 

 necessity for their preparation, and the desire of 

 having them well concocted, that according to Captain 

 Lyon, ' in the houses of respectable people, a woman, 

 called from her office Tortillera, is kept for the ex- 

 press purpose 5 and it sounds very oddly to the ear 

 of a stranger during meal-times, to hear the rapid 

 patting and clapping which goes forward in the 

 cooking-place, until all demands are satisfied.'* 



The various uses to which the maize plant and 

 grain may be applied cannot perhaps be better enu- 

 merated than in the words of Dr Franklin, a man 

 accustomed to make a sober estimate upon every 



* Lyon's Mexico, vol. ii, p. 136. 



