174 MEXICO, CENTEAL AMERICA, WEST INDIES. 



wine, and the drunkenness caused by it is said to be provocative of wranglings and 

 bickerings. Besides pulque, the agave, treated in different ways, yields various 

 other drinks, sweet or acid, weak or strong, such as the mcxcal or tequila, the 

 " Mexican brandy " of English writers. 



Maguey, the planta de las maravillas of the Mexicans, yields other products 

 besides pulque and mexcal. From it the ancient Aztecs obtained paper, as their 

 descendants do soap, a species of gum, and especially various kinds of fibre used 

 according to their quality for making brushes, cordage, yarns, and textiles. The 

 smaller varieties of maguey known by the names of ixtli and lechuguilla [agave hcte- 

 racantha) contribute largely to the wealth of San Luis Potosi and Vallès, while the 

 Zapotecs of Oaxaca export a variety of articles made from 7;?Yr< fibre [bromelia 

 silvestris). Hcnequcn {agave sisalensis or Sùal hemp) has done still more for the 

 prosperity of Yucatan, and, thanks to this cactus, the most arid regions of the 

 peninsula have become the most productive. The fibre of this plant serves to make 

 cables, cordage, canvas ; which, though not so stout as that of hemp, is none the 

 less in great demand throughout the industrial centres of North America. 



Two of the Mexican articles of export, cochineal and indigo, have ceased to 

 possess any economic importance, the former having been ruined by the com- 

 petition of the cochineal produced in the Canary Islands, the latter by the indigo 

 grown in Bengal, and now also partly replaced by mineral dyes. Oaxaca, 

 formerly the chief centre of the cochineal industry, and still exporting about 8,000 

 cwt. in 1870, produced only a fiftieth part of that quantity in 1877, and the outlay 

 had everywhere exceeded the returns. The nopal {cactus coccinifera), on which 

 the insect fed, has accordingly been almost universally replaced by other economic 

 plants, especially the coffee shrub. But there is another variety of cochineal 

 which yields large profits, and the cultivation of which has already made some 

 progress. This is the aje or axln {llaveia axin), that is, the " fat cochineal,'* very 

 common in all the low-lying and temperate parts of south Mexico. The adult 

 female of this insect, boiled in a metal vessel, yields about 27 per cent, of its 

 weight in axine, a fatty substance about the consistency of butter, and the most 

 siccative oily product known to commerce. The Yucatecs formerly used it for 

 painting their dwellings, and the North Americans have also begun to employ it. 

 Every tree peopled by a colony of ajes easily yields 20 to 25 pounds of insects, or 

 about 6 pounds of grease. 



Mexico also takes a certain limited share in the production of the great agri- 

 cultural industries of the world. Cotton is grown chiefly in the northern provinces 

 bordering on the United States, as well as in Guerrero and Vera Cruz. The 

 sugar-cane, introduced by Fernan Cortes, is cultivated in the southern states of 

 Morelos, Puebla, Campeachy, aad Yucatan, but almost exclusively for the local 

 consumption ; cacao, which thrives well on the lower slopes of the Soconusco 

 escarpments, and even in the interior of Chiapas, grows in a too thinly-peopled 

 region to yield large annual crops. Coffee is of far more economic importance, 

 especially as an item in the foreign trade of the country. In 1887 Oaxaca already 

 possessed 3,000,000 shrubs; the plantations in the temperate zone of Vera 



