336 



WINE — SUGAR. 



but in poor land the harvest cannot be expected 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 accele- 

 rated by adding a little old pulque, ends in three or 

 four days ; and the result is a liquor resembling 

 cider, but with a very unpleasant smell, like that of 

 putrid meat. Europeans who can reconcile them- 

 selves to the scent, prefer the pulque to every other 

 liquor, and it is considered as stomachic, invigor- 

 ating, 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 paper 

 on which the ancient Mexicans painted their hiero- 

 glyphical figures was made of their fibres, macerated 

 and disposed in layers. The prickles which termi- 

 nate them formerly served as pins and nails to the 

 Indians, and the priests pierced their arms and breasts 

 with them in their acts of expiation. 



The vine is cultivated in Mexico, but in so small 

 a quantity that wine can hardly be considered as a 

 product of that country ; but the mountainous parts 

 of New-Spain, Guatemala, New-Grenada, and Ca- 

 raccas are so well adapted for its growth, that at 

 some future period they will probably supply the 

 whole of North America. 4 



Of colonial commodities, or productions which 

 furnish raw materials for the commerce and manu- 

 facturing industry of Europe, New-Spain affords 

 most of those procured from the West Indies. The 

 cultivation of the sugar-cane has of late years been 

 carried to such an extent, that the exportation of 

 sugar from Vera Cruz amounts to more than half a 

 million of arrobas, or 12,680,000 lb. avoird. ; which, 

 at 3 piastres the arroba, are equal to 5,925,000 francs, 

 or 246,875/. sterling. It was conveyed by the Span- 



