VALPARAISO. 137 
cutting the out-lying palms so close may injure them so as to prevent 
the growth of the fruit. This tree, when it is old, that is, when the 
people calculate that it may have seen a hundred and fifty years pass 
by, is cut. down; and, by the application of fire, a thick rich juice 
distils from it, called here mie/, or honey. The taste is between that 
of honey and the finest molasses. The quantity yielded by each tree” 
sells for 200 dollars. Some other species of palms I know produce a 
sort of sugar. The date tree is one; but that, I remember, used to be 
tapped for the saccharine juice in the East Indies. I mean to suggest 
to some of my friends to try whether this tree, like the true cocoa-nut 
and the palmetto of Adamson, as well as the cycas or todda-pana, 
yields the toddy from which the best East Indian arrack is distilled. 
Pedro Ordojiez de Cevallos says the Indians call it Maguey, and 
make honey, wine, vinegar, cloth, cord, and thatch from it. * 
After stopping some time at the first group of palms, we rode 
along the Caxon by the woocd-cutters’ paths, till stopped by the 
thickets, following the course of the stream ; which sometimes flowed 
through a smooth valley, and sometimes between mountains so steep 
that the sun had not reached the bottom by noon-day, and the shrubs 
were sparkling with white dew. On our return, we met the first 
flock of sheep I had seen here. They are rather small; the fleeces 
appear fine and thick ; they fetch at present from two to three, or 
even four reals, when very fine ; but just now the price of the whole 
sheep would not exceed seven reals. Iam happy to say, that during 
my ride I saw several fields newly brought into cultivation: it is 
painful to see the waste of fertile land here; but the country wants 
* Is this the honey which Cabeza de Vacca found among the Guaranies in such plenty 
when he crossed from St. Catherine’s to Assumption over-land? The bread made of pine 
flour may have been plentiful, but not very agreeable. The nut fresh is larger, but like 
the pine-nut of Italy: there are two kinds; one like the chocolate-nut, the other longer, 
paler, and shining; both produced in great abundance in the Cordillera de los Andes. 
The Chilian Agave is also described under the name of Maguey; and, in the northern 
provinces, its juices are converted into a kind of treacle and a fermented drink. The fibres 
of the leaves make good canvass and cordage. I suspect this is the true Maguey. 
T 
