over the cultivation of maize, grain, and potatoes. This plant, with firm and vigorous leaves, is neither affected by drought nor hail, nor the excessive cold which prevails in winter on the higher Cordilleras of Mexico. The stalk perishes after efflorescence. If we deprive it of the central leaves, it withers, after the juice which nature appears to have destined to the increase of the hampe is entirely exhausted. An infinity of shoots then spring from the root of the decayed plant; for no plant multiplies with greater facility. An arpent of ground contains from 12 to 13 hundred maguey plants. If the field is of old cultivation, we may calculate that a twelfth or fourteenth of these plants yields honey annually. A proprietor who plants from 30 to 40,000 maguey is sure to establish the fortune of his children; but it requires patience and courage to follow a species of cultivation which only begins to grow lucrative at the end of fifteen years. In a good soil the agave enters on its efflorescence at the end of five years; and in a poor soil no harvest can be expected in less than 18 years. Although the rapidity of the vegetation is of the utmost consequence for the Mexican cultivators, they never attempt artificially to accelerate the development of the hampe by mutilating the roots or watering them with warm water. It has been discovered that by these means, which weaken the plant, the confluence of juice towards the centre is sensibly di

minished. A maguey plant is destroyed if, misled by false appearances, the Indian makes the incision long before the flowers would have naturally developed themselves.

The honey or juice of the agave is of a very agreeable sour taste. It easily ferments, on account of the sugar and mucilage which it contains. To accelerate this fermentation they add, how. ever, a little old and acid pulque. The operation is terminated in three or four days. The vinous beverage, which resembles cyder, has an odour of putrid meat extremely disagreeable; but the Europeans who have been able to get over the aversion which this fetid odour inspires, prefer the pulque to every other liquor. They consider it as stomachic, strengthening, and especially as very nutritive; and it is recommended to lean persons. I have seen whites who, like the Mexican Indians, totally abstained from water, beer, and wine, and drunk no other liquor than the juice of the agave. The connoisseurs speak with enthusiasm of the pulque prepared in the village of Hocotitlan, situated to the north of Toluca, at the foot of a mountain almost as elevated as the Nevado of this name. They affirm that the excellent quality of this pulque does not altogether depend on the art with which the liquor is prepared, but also on a taste of the soil communicated to the juice according to the fields in which the plant is cultivated. There are plantations of

maguey near Hocotitlan (haciendas de pulque) which bring in annually more than 40,000 livres*. The inhabitants of the country differ very much in their opinions as to the true cause of the fetid odour of the pulque. It is generally affirmed that this odour, which is analogous to that of animal matter, is to be ascribed to the skins in which the first juice of the agave is poured. But several well informed individuals pretend that the pulque when prepared in vessels has the same odour, and that if it is not found in that of Toluca, it is because the great cold there modifies the process of fermentation. I only knew of this opinion at the period of my departure from Mexico, so that I have to regret that I could not clear up by direct experiments this curious point in vegetable chemistry. Perhaps this odour proceeds from the decomposition of a vegeto-animal matter, analogous to the gluten, contained in the juice of the

agave.

The cultivation of the maguey is an object of such importance for the revenue, that the entry duties paid in the three cities of Mexico, Toluca, and Puebla, amounted, in 1793, to the sum of 817,739 piastres †. The expenses of perception were then 56,608 piastres; so that the government drew from the agave juice a nett revenue of

*16667. sterling. Trans. 178,880. sterling. Trans..

12,3837. sterling.

761,181 piastres *, or more than 3,800,000 francs. The desire of increasing the revenues of the crown occasioned latterly a heavy tax on the fabrication of pulque, equally vexatious and inconsiderate. It is time to change the system in this respect, otherwise it is to be presumed that this cultivation, one of the most ancient and lucrative, will insensibly decline, notwithstanding the decided predilection of the people for the fermented juice of the agave.

A very intoxicating brandy is formed from the pulque, which is called merical, or aguardiente de maguey. I have been assured that the plant cultivated for distillation differs essentially from the common maguey, or maguey de pulque. It appeared to me smaller, and to have the leaves not so glaucous; but not having seen it in flower I cannot judge of the difference between the two species. The sugar-cane has also a particular variety, with a violet stalk, which came from the coast of Africa (caña de Guinea), and which is preferred in the province of Caraccas for the fabrication of rum to the sugar-cane of Otaheite. The Spanish government, and particularly the real hacienda, has been long very severe against the merical, which is strictly prohibited, because the use of it is prejudicial to the Spanish brandy trade. An enormous quantity, however, of this

* 166,4971. Trans.

maguey brandy is manufactured in the intendancies of Valladolid, Mexico, and Durango, especially in the new kingdom of Leon. We may judge of the value of this illicit traffic by considering the disproportion between the population of Mexico and the annual importation of Eu ropean brandy into Vera Cruz. The whole importation only amounts to 32,000 barrels! In several parts of the kingdom, for example in the provincias internas and the district of Tuxpan, belonging to the intendancy of Guadalaxara, for some time past the mexical has been publicly sold on payment of a small duty. This measure, which ought to be general, has been both profitable to the revenue, and has put an end to the complaints of the inhabitants.

But the maguey is not only the vine of the Aztecs, it can also supply the place of the hemp of Asia, and the papyrus (cyperus papyrus) of the Egyptians. The paper on which the ancient Mexicans painted their hieroglyphical figures was made of the fibres of agave leaves, macerated in water, and disposed in layers like the fibres of the Egyptian cyperus, and the mulberry (broussonetia) of the South Sea islands. I brought with me several fragments of Aztec manuscripts written on maguey paper, of a thickness so different that some of them resemble pasteboard, while

*See chap. vi. vol. i. p. 160.