Page:Young Folks History Of Mexico.pdf/186

 180 beverages from the corn, the mountain-palm, and other plants.

So we may see, that, though they did not possess a great variety, yet they utilized all that their country afforded. Eggs they had from the turkeys, iguanas, turtles, and perhaps the alligators; their meats were the flesh of quail and other native birds, rabbits, deer, and wild hogs, or peccaries. Having no beasts of burden, they trained their children to carry heavy loads over great distances, which they do even now, surpassing every other people in respect to endurance and strength. It is said that they had not found out how to make candles from wax, and as they had no sheep they could not obtain tallow; but in the coast countries they made use of those luminous coleoptera called fire-flies, and in the uplands torches of ocotl, or resinous pine-wood, to give them light at night. The habits of the people were very simple, and as they usually rose with the sun and retired at dark, they had little need for artificial light.

Every house had its idol, before which they daily burned incense of gum copal, which is a spontaneous product of the country. After laboring a little while in the morning, the poorer people had their frugal breakfast of tortillas, or atolli—maize gruel, which meal they repeated in the afternoon. They ate sparingly, but drank frequently, and the nobility enjoyed a siesta after their meals, soothing themselves to sleep by the aid of tobacco, which they smoked through a little pipe of wood, or a reed, mixed with the leaves of the liquid amber.

Finally, in a list of the vegetable productions that ministered to the wants of the Mexicans, should not be forgetten a singular fruit and a root that provided them with soap. The root, called the amolli, possessed excellent cleansing properties, not only when used upon the person but upon cotton and linen.