Page:Face to Face With the Mexicans.djvu/567

Rh several of lemons and limes. Then there are capulins (wild cherries), the juice of which is used in tamales; the tejocote, ciruelas, cidras, all small fruits, besides cicapnatl (peanut), as also many other delicious nuts; the calabaza (pumpkin), one of the chief articles of food for the poor; the caña (sugar-cane); the cacao, from which chocolate is made; the guayaba (guava); gtanada (pomegranate); several kinds of figs, pears, and grapes; also, charvicannos (apricots), mora (mulberries), zarzamora (blackberries), grosella (raspberry). The aceituna (olive) thrives anywhere on the table-lands. Then there are the sandia (watermelon), the camote (sweet potato), the endless and delightful varieties of the tuna (prickly pear), and the maguey (agave Americana), known to us as the century-plant, which furnishes everything from a needle and thread to a house-top, as well as a variety of food and drink. Of the latter, several varieties are made, chief among which is pulque, the national beverage. The manufacture of this liquor is as peculiar as it is interesting. Just before flowering time (which occurs much oftener than once in a hundred years) the heart of the plant is extracted and a sap rises to fill the cavity. The tlachiquero, whose business it is to collect this sap two or three times a day, places one end of a gourd syphon in the cavity and the other end to his lips, and, by suction, draws the juice up into the body of the gourd. It is then emptied into a sheep skin which he carries upon his back, and from this put into a vat, also of sheep skin, which, like the other, has the wool turned inward. The odor imparted to the liquid by these skins, as may be imagined, is anything but agreeable. On bringing it to the lips for a draught, the first impulse is to seize the nose, without which precautionary measure it is doubtful if the induction into this beverage would ever be made. It is much pleasanter to the palate, however, than to the olfactories, and its effects upon the system are generally beneficial. It possesses medicinal properties and is considered a specific for Bright's disease. The cultivation of the maguey is quite a source of income, as a single plant yields about one gallon of sap a day, and rarely more than one hundred and twenty-five quarts in all, after which it dies.