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AGAVE AMERICANA—PULQUE. 387 
Cacanumacan, a maguey eight years old gives signs 
of developing its flowers. The bundle of central 
leaves is now cut, the wound is gradually enlarged 
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 occa- 
sionally yields the quantity of 454 cubic inches a- 
day for four or five months. This 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 ; butin poor land*the harvest cannot be ex- 
pected 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 resem- 
. bling cider, but with a very unpleasant smell like 
that of putrid meat. Europeans who can reconcile 
themselves to the scent prefer the pulgue to every 
other liquor, and it is considered as stomachic, invi- 
gorating, and nutritive. A very intoxicating 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 pa- 
per on which the ancient Mexicans painted their 
hieroglyphical figures was made of their fibres, ma- 
cerated and disposed in layers. The prickles which 
terminate them formerly served as pins and nails 
