1881.] Sotol. 875 
and drink; no one need suffer from thirst or hunger who finds a 
tuft of bear-grass and has along handled knife or an axe with 
which to overcome it and cut off, as low as possible, some of the 
central leaves; often these can be torn off by pulling them with 
a twist at the unarmed apex. The nutritive saccharine substance 
lies mostly in the white, expanded bases which always give to the 
test a large proportion of glucose. These bases are closely and 
compactly imbricated into a bulby expansion or “ head,” from 
which the leaves proper seem to grow; this head, trimmed down 
to the white, fleshy moss, is ready for use either on the road, in 
the Mexican kitchen or by the mescal manufacturer. For eating, 
it can be boiled, broiled or baked, previously, if convenient, cut- 
ting an axial hole through it to render the cooking more rapid 
and thorough. Broiling on coals takes an hour or Jess. Baking, 
the usual mode of preparing it for food, is done in an oven or, if 
in the field, in a small heated pit where it is kept about twenty-four 
hours, or until it has acquired a rich brown color. The scales are 
detached and eaten as needed after pealing off the thin epidermis 
covering both sides, or again they may be ground into atole. 
Their sweet taste, not unlike that of molasses, reminds one of the 
“mescal” of the Arizona Apaches, that is, the baked head of the 
Agave palmeri and Agave parryi. This, however, differs from 
the sotol head in being much smaller and consisting mostly of 
the thickened top of the rootstock, so that its solid, homogene- 
ous mass can be cut in slices like a cake, 
Sotol mescal—The main and paramount use of sotol is in the 
Making of a spirituous liquor known as “ mescal” along the bor- 
der, but in the interior of Mexico, to avoid mistaking it for a 
Similar product from maguey, called soto] mescal. This fabrica- 
tion is carried on mostly in the Mexican States of Chihuahua, 
Cohuihuila and Sonora, and sotol mescal is the ordinary alcoholic 
beverage of the native population. It is precluded in Texas by 
€ high duties laid on this class of industry. 
‘ The distillery, or vinata, is located in foot-hills, near water, and 
in the midst of a perennial crop of bear-grass. Trains of burros 
bring in every evening their loads of heads; these as trimmed by 
the axe of the peon and ready for the oven, are subconical in 
Shape, twelve or fifteen inches high and broad, and weigh from 
twenty to, twenty-five pounds; they attain much larger dimen- 
_ “l0ns in favorable localities, and a vinata proprietor has even 
