Page:Our Sister Republic - Mexico.djvu/422

408 of the people. When the blossom stalk starts out, it is cut off, and the center of the plant is hollowed out so as to form a deep cup. In this reservoir the sap collects, and once in twenty-four hours the Indians, with long calabashes, with holes in each end, go around to gather it. They thrust one end of the calabash into the sap, and applying the other to the mouth, suck the sweet fluid up until the calabash is filled, then let it run into the pig-skins, in which it is carried to market. A little of the old pulque, already fermented, is added to the fresh juice, and the skins being exposed in the sun for a few days the fluid is ready for drinking. None for me, thank you! We saw them gathering the sap all along the road. The amount of pulque consumed in Mexico is almost beyond belief.

"Wall stranger, what's a bar'l o' whiskey in a fam'ly o' eleven children, an' no cow?" was the indignant reply of the Wabash Valley Hoosier, to an inquirer after useless knowledge, named Fitch, some years since. The same idea prevails with regard to pulque, among the poorer Mexicans. Special trains are run over the road to carry pulque to the capital, and still, by far the greater portion is brought in upon the backs of men, mules and donkeys.

Some twenty or twenty-five miles from the city we passed the first pyramids, known as those of San Juan Tehuacan, which stand about a fourth of a mile from the railway, up towards the hills. There are two large ones, each apparently three hundred to four hundred feet in height, and well defined in their angles after the lapse of so many centuries. They were built from adobes, and then covered over with earth, and sodded, to protect them from the rains and sun. A zigzag path