40 



HISTORY OF MEXICO. 



efpecially when it is frefli cut. There is alfo in that 

 country, a tree whofe wood is precious, but its nature is 

 fo malignant as to occalion^a fwelling in the fcrotum of 

 any one who manages it indifcreetly when frefli cut. 

 The name which the Michuacans give it (^which 1 do not 

 at prefent remember j exprefles diitin^lly that noxious ef- 

 fect. I have never been a witnefs of this fa^l, nor have 

 I feen the tree ; but I learned it when I was in Michua- 

 can, from refpe6i:able authority. 



Hernandez, in his Natural Fliftory, defcribes about 

 one hundred fpecies of trees ; but having, as we before 

 mentioned, confecrated his fludy to the medicinal plants, 

 he omits the greater part of thofe which that fertile foil 

 produces, and in particular thofe which are mofl: confi- 

 derable for their fize, and valued for their wood. There 

 are alfo trees, in height and largenefs fo prodigious, they 

 are not at all inferior to thofe which Pliny boafts to be 

 the miracles of nature. 



Acofta makes mention of a cedar, which was in Atla- 

 cuechahuayan, a place nine miles diflant from Antequera 

 or Oaxaca, the circumference of whofe trunk was fixteen 

 fathoms, that is more than eighty-two feet of Paris ; and 

 I have feen in a houfe in the country a beam, one hundred 

 and twenty Caflilian feet, or one hundred andfevenPa- 

 rifian feet long. In the capital, and other cities there 

 are very large tables of cedar to be feen, confifling of 

 one fmgle piece. In the valley of Atlixco there is ftill ex- 

 ifting a very ancient fir-tree (5'), fo large, that into a ca- 

 vity of its trunk which was occafioned by lightning, four- 

 teen 



(g) The Mexican name of this tree is, Ahuehuetl ; and the common Spaniard 

 of that country calls it, Ahuehuete; but thofe who would fpeak in Caftilian call 

 it Sabino, that is Savin, in which they are deceived; for the Ahuehuetl, though 

 very like to Savin, is not one, but a fir, as Hernandez demonftrates, in lib. iix. 

 cap. 66, of his Nat. Hift. I faw the fir of Atlixco in my way through that city, 

 ' in 1756, but not near enough to form a juft idea of its bignefs. 



