330 



AGAVE AMERICANA — PULQUE. 



CHAP. XXV 



Maguey. 



Mode of 

 collecting 

 the jiiice. 



Fermenta- 

 tion. 



Agave hemp. 



(Agnvr Americana), is extensively reared as far as the 

 Aztec languau^e extends. The finest plantations of it 

 seen hy our traveller were in the valley of Tolucca and 

 on the plains of Cholula. It yields the saccharine juice 

 at the period of inflorescence only, the approach of which 

 is anxiously oh.served. Near the latter place, and be- 

 tween Tolucca and Cacanumacan, a maguey eight years 

 old gives signs of developing its flowers. The bundle of 

 central leaves is now cut, the wound is gradually en- 

 larged and covered with the foliage, which is drawn 

 close and tied at the top. In this wound the vessels 

 seem to deposite the juice that would naturally have 

 gone to expand the blossoms. It continues to run two 

 or three months, and the Indians draw from it three or 

 four times a-day. A very vigorous plant occasionally 

 v^ields the quantity of 464 cubic inches a-day for four 

 Or five months. Tiiis is so much the more astonishing, 

 that the plantations are usually in the most arid and 

 steril ground. In a good soil the agave is ready for 

 being cut at the age of five years ; but in poor land the 

 harvest cannot be expected in less than eighteen. 



This juice or honey has an agreeable acid taste, and 

 easily ferments on account of the sugar and mucilage 

 which abound in it. This process, which is accelerated 

 by adding a little old pulque, ends in three or four days ; 

 and the result is a liquor resembling cider, but with a 

 very unpleasant smell like that of putrid meat. Euro- 

 peans who can reconcile themselves to the scent prefer 

 the pulque to every other liquor, and it is considered as 

 stomachic, invigorating, and nutritive. A very intoxi- 

 cating brandy, called mexical, is also obtained from it, and 

 in some districts is manufactured to a great extent. 



The leaves of the agave also supply the place of hemp 

 and the papyrus of the Egyptians. The paper on which 

 the ancient Mexicans painted their hieroglypliical figures 

 was made of tiieir fibres macerated and disposed in layers. 

 The prickles which terminate them formerly served as 

 pins and nails to the Indians, and tlie priests pierced their 

 arms and breasts witii them in their acts of expiation. 



