CACTI, SHRUBS, AND FLOWERS 63 



away, leaving a clean butt fifteen inches or so long, 

 eight or ten thick, and weighing several pounds. 



Next a pit was dug, two or three feet deep and 

 somewhat more in diameter. This was lined, bottom 

 and sides, with flat slabs of rock, and a loose coping 

 was laid also about the edge. On this coping the 

 agave butts were laid. A good bonfire was built over 

 the pit, and allowed to burn for twenty minutes or 

 so, the embers falling into the pit and covering the 

 bottom thickly. Then the butts, already charred by 

 the fire, were tumbled into the pit, and with them 

 the heated coping stones and all the still-glowing 

 embers. Earth was banked up over all, and the pit 

 was left for the day. The next afternoon we resur- 

 rected our booty after some thirty hours' baking. The 

 charred lumps had much the appearance of ele- 

 phants' feet. Cutting away the blackened skin we 

 arrived at a golden brown mass, as sweet as molasses 

 and with a flavor that I first found peculiar, then 

 interesting, finally seductive. 



In a cranny of the rocks, Antonio's quick eyes had 

 sighted a relic of mescal-bakings of old — a long, 

 straight pole of the heavy wood of the mountain 

 mahogany, one end shaped to a chisel-like edge. It 

 was, Antonio said, a peh-wee', the tool used for cut- 

 ting out a-moosh' (mescal) by his people of bygone 

 days, before the white man and his wonderful things 

 of iron and steel had come within their ken. It had 

 an uncouth look that suggested the weapons of cave- 

 dwellers, and I wondered whether the formidable 

 old tool might not have seen wilder service in its 

 day than just the peaceable reaping of agaves. 



