Chap. V. THE MEZQUITE BEAN. 507 
the substance of the pod which surrounds the beans is 
more or less dry, pithy, and of a sweet taste. The half- 
ripe pods fall on shaking the tree. In an earlier stage of 
maturity the covering substance has a pleasant acid taste, 
similar to that of a good summer apple. But these pods 
are quite uneatable, they can only be chewed and sucked, 
and they thus proved a pleasant refreshment. I have been 
told that the dry ripe pods are ground in Mexico, and that 
bread is made of the flour, but I did not hear whether the 
beans are used for the same purpose, nor whether the 
Pimas understand this culinary process. These people 
offered us an acid drink, extracted from the pods, which 
are soaked in water until fermentation begins ; they seemed 
to be fond of it. The fruit constitutes here the chief pro- 
vender for horses and mules, grass growing but scantily. 
When these animals have once tasted it, they conceive 
such a passion for it, that it is difficult to keep them in 
order when the road leads through a mezquite country. 
The abundance of this product in many places of the Gila 
and Colorado is incredible. 
We and our Indian friends were soon engaged in an 
animated barter. We received from them some green 
ears of maize, which are excellent roasted over a coal-fire, 
and proved a perfect luxury to us travellers, tired as we 
were of our caravan diet. I exchanged, with a pleasing 
looking girl, one of the most elementary articles of my dress 
for the whole of her national wardrobe, consisting of a 
home-woven, thick, cotton blanket, which she wore wrapt 
round her body, reaching down to the knees, and of one of 
those pretty figured belts, which serve to fasten it. The 
latter was a production of her own industry, and she 
seemed to part with it reluctantly. It is due to her to 
observe, that her change of dress was not performed in 
