Page:Narrative of an Official Visit to Guatemala.djvu/196

176 spring are all the meat and drink he wishes for. It is well known that the Agave, which produces the drink called Pulque, is very fastidious as to the places in which it thrives. I had not tasted or seen any of this beverage since my second day's journey out of the capital of Mexico: it is a drink so universally approved of by the Indians, that it is hardly possible to conceive that they would not go to the trouble of cultivating the plant, if it would grow; and, yet, as I did not meet with it in many spots which appeared as congenial to its cultivation as Amatitañ, it can be only inferred that laziness is the cause why so great a portion of those countries is deprived of that exhilarating and wholesome substitute for water, or, as some think, for wine.

Every evening, during these holidays, there were balls, monte-tables, (a sort of game of odd and even,) and other pastimes to make life slide lightly away: the festivities finished with the evening of Tuesday: the place was