Ny a ein hn’ | 
4, es 
386 On the Commerce of Mextco. 
ary object of those Spaniards who came to Mexico in the 
earlier periods of its subjection was to search for the pre- 
cious metals, the maguey plant also occupied their atten- 
tion very considerably, especially when increased inter- 
course with the natives revealed the variety of uses to 
which the plant was put by them, and it was lengthily 
treated upon by the authors of the time, although from 
similarity of form it was not unfrequently confounded with 
the common aloe, and even sometimes considered to be a 
gigantic species of the thistle or cardon. 
The following description of the plant is taken from the 
narrative of a gentleman in the suite of Ferdinand Cortes 
(“ Relacion de un Gentilhombre de la comitiva de Hernan 
Cortes”), published at Venice in 1606 :— 
. “A plant exists in this country (Mexico) which is at once a 
tree and a thistle; the leaves are as wide as the knee, and longer 
than the arm ; a stem springs from the centre of it, which attains 
to two or three times the height of a man, and its bulk is that of 
a child six or seven years old. When it is ripe the Indians cut 
the stem at the bottom, which produces a juice which they drink 
to excess, losing their senses and falling to the ground. This 
plant is of extreme utility, for it produces wine, vinegar, honey, 
and a beverage resembling cooked grape juice (pulque under 
some of its varieties). It also serves for the manufacture of gar- 
ments for both sexes, of shoes and ropes, and is also used as 
rooffing for houses. The natives also preserve the leaves of this 
tree or thistle, which is as much esteemed by them as the vine is 
by Europeans ; from which leaves, after toasting them in ovens 
dug in the ground, and drawing out the fibres, they manufacture 
a drink (mezcal, to which allusion is made further on), with which 
they intoxicate themselves. The natives call the plant the 
maguey.” 
Ferdinand Cortes says, in the second of his letters to 
the Emperor Charles V., in describing the market of 
Tenochtitlau (Mexico), “they (the natives) sell honey made 
by bees and honey made from maize stalks, which are as 
sweet as the sugar-cane, and also honey made from the 
plant, the maguey, and from this same plant they also make 
sugar and wine.’ 
To the various uses to which the maguey plant was 
turned by the ancient Mexicans, and which were so much 
commented upon by the writers of the period, may be 
added that of the making of paper from the skin of the 
leaves, many curious old documents still existing of that 
material, as well as the manufacture of a kind of soap from 
