Page:Mexico of the Mexicans.djvu/58

42 And, first, the water-carriers. These are, in reality, persons of importance in a land like sunburnt Anahuac, where water is not "laid on" in the majority of dwellings, but is brought to the capital in aqueducts, and distributed by carriers who earn from 50 to 75 cents a day. The water-carrier is usually a staid, almost solemn-looking person, clothed in bronze-coloured garments of leather, which match his skin in hue, bearing on his back a large pig-skin full of "the element by which he liveth," suspended by a broad leathern band which he supports with his forehead and by the strength of his muscular neck. In front of him he carries an earthenware jug, which is not intended, as some imagine, to measure the fluid he sells, but which, alas, he does not himself patronise. It holds a smaller supply of water to balance the larger vessel, and the two represent his "load."

Perhaps "too much familiarity breeds contempt," and having earned his scanty pay, he hastens with it to that scourge of Mexico, the pulqueria, where he usually succeeds in "drowning remembrance of his watery toil." He has an odd way of keeping tally with the housewives with whom he deals. Along with the jars of water he hands them a small berry, and this at the week's end is redeemed at the rate of 1½ cents for each.

His antithesis is the pulquero or seller of pulque, who traffics the national beverage through the streets in large pig-skins. This he extracts twice a day from the agave plant - When it begins to put forth its high central flowering stalk, the core is cut out and a receptacle left capable of holding three to four gallons, into which flows the sap which should support the stalk. This is withdrawn by means of a long gourd and emptied into the pulquero's pig-skin. The pulquero usually wears a cloth jacket and low-crowned sombrero, and is clean, alert, and businesslike—as, by the way, are most people who deal in intoxicants!