charm, when all the Indians in the neighbourhood, male and female, assembled to drink of this horrible beverage. At dinner parties, it is customary to have on a side-table several bottles of rum, spruce beer, and other liquors, with cakes and confections, of which the guests partake on entering the room. The same glass is used by the whole company, and it would be deemed uncourteous if any hesitated to drink after another. The more lips the glass has touched, the more friendship in the acceptance; and should any individual from squeamishness look for a place that had been untouched, he would be treated with contempt by the rest of the company. When a lady honours a gentleman by drinking to him, he takes her glass and cautiously observes to place his lips on the very spot which she had touched with hers, and then drains the contents to the last drop. It is usual at parties, when the guests become mellow and a favourite toast is drunk, to shiver the glasses to atoms, implying that the subject is too good ever again to suffer the same glasses to be defiled by being made to contain a bumper to any less exceptionable sentiment.* The juice of the Agave is by the Peruvians fermented in the same way as in Mexico, where it is made into a kind of wine called pulque or pouchra, by others denominated octli. When Francis Pizarro had his first interview with the Inca Atahualpa, he was presented with a golden goblet of this wine. The Inca, holding a similar one in his hand, pledged him on the occasion of his visit, which he hoped would lead to the good of himself, his country, and his people. Pizarro observed that the inhabitants, at that time, understood the brewing of beer from oats, and found ale-houses established for its sale. Pulque, or Pouchra, is at present in great demand all over the South American continent, and the spirit extracted from it is known by the name of Mexical, or agua ardiente de Maguey, from the circumstance of its distillation having been first introduced at Mexico by the Spaniards. The manufacture of this liquor was prohibited by the Spanish government as injurious to the trade of their brandies; but as it was a general favourite among the inhabitants, and smuggled to a great extent through the country, its distillation was at length publicly permitted on the payment of a certain duty.

In the Theatro Americano, published at Mexico, in 1746, it appears that 161,000 peros were raised by the tax on pulque.† The consumption of this liquor, in 1791, amounted to 294,790 cargoes, that of wine and vinegar to 4,507 barrels of 4

* Temple's Travels, vol. ii. p. 311.

arobas, and 12,000 barrels

† Robertson's America, vol. iii. note, p. 196. Bonnycastle's Account of Spanish America, 8vo. vol. i. p. 63.

of brandy. Since that period, wine is much more in use, and of pulque the enormous quantity of 44 millions of bottles, each containing 58,141 cubic inches, have been annually consumed.

When Humboldt visited New Spain in 1804, the cultivation of the maguey had become of great im portance to the exchequer. The duties of entry on this article paid in Mexico, Puebla, and Toluca, in 1798, amounted to 817,739 piasters, or £178,880 sterling. The expense of collection was 55,608 piasters, and the net profit to the crown was 761,131 piasters, or £166,497. The entire revenue derived from the fermented juice of the agave, through the whole of New Spain, is said to exceed 800,000 piasters; but it must be considerably greater, since a late writer computes the annual consumption in the city of Mexico alone at 1,000,000 of piasters. The houses in that capital, for the sale of it, have of late become so numerous, that the police, to check the great irregularities which they occasion, allow them to remain open no longer than from ten o'clock to four in the day. This drink is allowed to enter the city only by one gate, that of Guadaloupe; and a similar regulation prevails in most of the other cities of New Spain.

Large plantations of maguey are now under cultivation, both by the natives and Spaniards; and the mode of conducting the crops is thus described :

The plants are set about nine feet asunder in rows, and require little attention until the season of flowering, which has been averaged at a period of ten years. In a plantation of 1000 aloes, it is calculated that about 100 are in flower every year. The Indians know the exact time at which the stem or central shoot, from which the flower springs, is about to appear, when they instantly cut out the whole of this stem, leaving a hollow or cup, formed by the rind, a foot and a half in diameter and nearly two feet in depth. This is covered with leaves, and the juice, which otherwise would have served for the nourishment and support of the central stalk, flows into this cavity, and in such quantities as to require its removal two or three times a day. This sap is called aguamiel, or honey-water, from its ropy or honey-like taste and consistency. A thriving plant yields from eight to fifteen pints of this sap in a day. The exudation continues two or three months, and each plant produces on an average about 150 quarts annually. Great judgment is required in extracting the central portion of the stem which bears the flower, for, if the operation be made either too early or too late, the plant is wholly destroyed and rendered unproductive.

Bonnycastle's Account of Spanish America, vol. i. p. 63.

A mistake prevails in Europe respecting the time which the aloe or agave takes to flower, which is said to be but once in a century; but we find that on the American continent, it blossoms after the date of its being planted in a period varying from 8 to 18 years. The plant is composed of a number of strong indented leaves at the base, of from five to eight feet in length, with a stalk twenty-five feet high, having twenty or thirty branches diminishing in proportion as they are elevated from the base, and form a kind of pyramid bearing a greenish yellow flower, standing erect in thick clusters from every joint. Such is the majestic appearance of this plant, if undisturbed, and it continues to produce these flowers for upwards of three months successively. But it is at the critical moment that the central or flower stem is about to appear that the ingenious planter extracts the heart or central portion of the stalk, when, instead of an immediate efflorescence, a flowing of juice commences and continues during the period that the plant itself would have been ornamented with blossoms. Annexed is a representation of the agave in the state at which the juice is collected, with the skin, scraper, and gourd: the latter of which has its smaller end terminated with a horn, and is used by the planters in the same way as brewers in Europe take samples from the bungs of beer or porter barrels.

In the preparation of the pulque from the juice thus obtained, no barm or yeast is employed to cause fermentation. A quantity of the sap is allowed to stand in a vessel for ten or fifteen days, in which time it ferments and is termed madre pulque, or the mother of pulque. This is distributed in small portions into the troughs or skins along with the aguamiel to excite fermentation, and in twenty-four hours after, the pulque is finished and in the very best state for drinking. The Mexicans attribute to pulque the same virtues that the Irish do to whiskey. Europeans dislike it at first from its heavy smell, somewhat like sour milk or slightly tainted meat; but in a little time, when this disagreeable flavour has, become familiar, it is esteemed both a wholesome, cooling, and nutritious beverage, being always drunk in a state of effervescence, and no bad effects arising from its slightly intoxicating qualities. Some plantations of agave have been known to bring in upwards of £1,666 annually.

It is surprising that in a country where heat is excessive and water scarce, that some better and speedier mode than that of conveying this drink to the great towns in skins on the backs of asses has not been adopted. By this means much time is lost and the liquor suffers in flavour, becoming heavy in the smell, and its freshness and cooling properties are in a great measure destroyed. Writers differ as to the cause of the fœtid odour of the pulque, some attributing it, as already stated, to the skins in which it is conveyed. Others say that it has the same disagreeable flavour when preserved in vessels. "Perhaps," says Humboldt, "the odour proceeds from the decomposition of a vegeto-animal matter, analogous to the gluten contained in the juice of the agave." In some parts of Mexico, there is a species of the maguey which is inferior to that in the vicinity of the capital, as just described. No pulque is made from it, but it is distilled into a strong spirit called Chinguerite.

The utility of the agave or aloe plant is not restricted to the production of pulque, but its leaves and fibres have been converted to many useful purposes. The Aborigines used the leaves, after a certain preparation, as a substitute for paper on which their hieroglyphics were written; and pieces of it are still to be found in the country resembling pasteboard, and some like Chinese paper. A durable good sort of twine is manufactured from the fibres and twisted into ropes, which are in great demand in the mining districts, and sometimes employed as cordage for shipping. This is known in Europe by the name of pite thread, and preferred by naturalists to every other, as it is not liable to twist. The plantations of maguey or agave are very profitable, and, as the plants are propagated with great ease and facility, many are engaged in its cultivation, from which an income of

from 10 to 12,000 dollars has been annually derived by one individual. This plant requires little or no water, and, although the parent one' withers as the sap is exhausted, a multitude of new suckers spring from the root, and, when transplanted, more of them supply its place. The length of time that must elapse from the first laying down of a plantation till it begins to prove productive, which, as already stated, is from eight to eighteen years, proves a great drawback and discouragement to agriculturists. But, when once a good establishment has been effected and matured, the proprietor is soon amply repaid for his toil, as, henceforward, there is an annual succession of plants to afford a constant supply for the market. A planter, who lays down from 30 to 40,000 plants, is sure, according to Humboldt, to establish the fortune of his children. The same writer thinks that the agave used for distillation is different from that used for pulque, although the produce of both is occasionally subjected to distillation, and the brandy made from them is very intoxicating. It is worthy of remark, that the juice of the agave, before the period of its efflorescence, is very acrid, and is successfully employed as a caustic in the cleansing of wounds; or, if the leaves are bruised and boiled, they produce a balsamic sirup used to cleanse and cure ulcers. The prickles which terminate the leaves served formerly like those of the cactus for pins and nails to the Indians. The Mexican priests pierced their arms and breasts with them in acts of expiation, analogous to those of the Budhists of Hindostan.

If proper attention were bestowed on the distillation of pulque, it would yield an excellent spirit; but many obstacles have been raised against this measure by the rapacity of the Spanish merchants. These gentlemen, at one time, carried their efforts so far as to solicit the government to extirpate the plant altogether, but as the country has passed into more liberal hands, a better order of things may be expected to arise, and in the course of some time, the spirit of the maguey may be brought to rival the brandies of Europe. As it is, pulque-brandy forms a considerable branch of the trade of the provinces, through which it is transported in leathern bags on the backs of mules. Whether, however, the use of this liquor, generally speaking, may not be of more injury to the morals of the people than the good it would produce either in an agricultural or a commercial view, is not here a point for discussion; but the ease with which intoxicating liquors are procured by the Indians of New Spain tends much to shorten their lives and demoralize their characters. Rum, spirits from maize, and the root of the jatropha manihot, with pulque, are the favourites. Pulque, when not subjected to distillation, is nutritive on account of its saccharine nature, and hence those who are addicted to