Mexico and Its Religion. Robert Anderson Wilson
the mountain-ridge should intervene between the world I had left behind, and the great salt desert that we were soon to traverse.
The prospect from the coach-top, as we traveled onward, was even more beautiful than that I have already described. For several miles beyond Jalapa we were descending and passing through one of those valleys of which the Spanish poets so often sing, where the roadside is covered with a profusion of the flowers and vegetation that flourish only in the most luxuriant soil. The valley was soon passed, and we began to ascend so rapidly, that before an hour had passed we could mark the changing vegetation, and observe the products of a colder climate; for this changing vegetation is a barometer, which, in Mexico, marks the ascent and descent as regularly as the most nicely-adjusted artificial instrument. So accurately are the stratas of vegetation adjusted to the stratas of the atmosphere which they inhabit, as to lead the traveler to imagine that a gardener's hand had laid out the different fields which here rise one above another upon the side of the mountain that constitutes the eastern inclosure of the table-land. The fertility of the soil did not seem to diminish; it was only the character of the vegetation that changed step by step, as we wound our way up toward the summit of the Perote.
MOUNTAIN VIEW.
We changed horses at La Hoya, a place memorable in the annals of civil war, as the spot where General Rincon blocked up the pass when Santa Anna was retiring in 1845, a fugitive from the country. Here the road becomes so steep as to induce the traveler to walk a little, for the better opportunities he can thus have of surveying the novel sights that present themselves at every turn of the road. When he is fatigued with climbing, and breathing the peculiar air of this altitude, he can seat himself by the roadside to wait the arrival of the coach, and to catch momentary glimpses, among floating clouds, of the country through which he has passed in his ascent from the coast. He can see a long distance through such a rarified atmosphere; but it is only a bird's-eye view, as the mass that is heaped together is more than his vision can fully take in, before a cloud, ragged and torn, has passed across the picture. The eye is delighted more with the details of a scene, than with this mass of all the excellences of all the climates. Still he has time to divide into sections the world below him; and as he thus contemplates in part, he at length realizes as a whole the scene that is presented. The art of man never has, and never can, produce such a combination in the arrangement of the courses of vegetation. As the traveler stands at an elevation where pine-trees crow in the tropics, where a post-and-board fence incloses a field of grain, and where a storm of snow and sleet had fallen only a few hours before, he can look down upon hills and plains, one below another, each one, in the descending scale, exhibiting more and more of tropical productions, until the regions of cocoa-nuts, and bananas, and sarsaparilla, and palms, and jalap, and vanilla, are reached in his perspective. This is a specimen chart, where all the climates and productions of the world are embraced within the scope of a single glance.
It is time to re-enter the coach, and close all openings, for a dense fog is coming up from the sea, and has thrown so thick a curtain over the prospect, that the eye can not penetrate it. The long line of freight-wagons, that have served to mark the route that we have come, disappear, one after another: we ourselves are soon enveloped in darkness. With the fog has come a chill and piercing air, and the pleasure of our mountain ride is now over. Still we move on and up with little hindrance, as the road on this side of the "divide" is in good repair. But as we go down on the other side, we are impeded by freight-wagons held fast in the mud, and unable to move down-hill—it being easier to drag a wagon up an ascent than to draw it down-hill through stiff mud. An entirely different world now presents itself. We are in a fine grain-growing country. Well-cultivated fields stretch out as far as the eye can reach, with farm-houses scattered here and there, that strikingly remind the traveler of his northern home at this season of the year.
THE MAGUEY.—PULQUE.
The fences here are chiefly formed by rows of the maguey or century plant, growing at the side of a ditch. Here it reaches its greatest perfection, and adds materially to the fine appearance of the fields, and is seen every where upon the table-land. It grows wild upon the mountains, and springs up in uncultivated places, as a weed. It is cultivated, as a domestic plant, in little patches, and is also planted in fields of leagues in extent. It grows luxuriantly in the richest soils, and shows itself in those desert plains, where nothing else, except a few spears of stinted grass and chaparral can exist.
The uses to which the maguey is applied are more numerous than the methods of its cultivation. When its immense leaf is pounded into a pulp, it forms a substitute for both cloth and paper. The fibre of the leaf, when beaten and spun, forms a beautiful thread, resembling silk in its glossy texture, but which, when woven into a fabric, more resembles linen than silk. This thread is now, and ever has been, the sewing thread of the country. The leaf of the maguey, when crudely dressed and spun into a coarse thread, is woven into sail-cloth and sacking; and from it is made the bagging in common use. The ropes made from it are of that kind called Manilla hemp. It is the best material in use for wrapping paper. When cut into coarse straws, it forms the brooms and whitewash-brushes of the country; and, as a substitute for bristles, it is made into scrub-brushes; and, finally, it supplies the place of hair-combs among the common people.
The great value of the maguey plant arises from the amount of intoxicating liquid which it produces, which is the chief source of intoxication among the common people of the table-land. There are two species of this plant cultivated. One of them flourishes in the desert portions of the country, from which an abominable liquor is distilled, called mescal, or mejical. The other is the flowering maguey, or century plant, of which so many fabulous stories are told in the United States. This is one of the wonders of the vegetable world. Until the plant has reached its tenth year, or thereabouts, there is no trace of a flower. In its fifteenth year, or thereabout, there are certain appearances which indicate that the central stem, or hampe, which sustains the flower, is about to form in the centre of the plant. If persons are not on the watch to cut out the heart at the proper time, the hampe shoots out, and grows to about the height of a telegraph post—for which I have often mistaken it—absorbing in its development the sap, which, when fermented, forms the intoxicating drink called pulque. The sprouting of the stalk takes place in November or December; but the beautiful cluster of flowers, for which it is so much admired, does not form at its top till February. In this last month, the monster leaf that envelops the hampe begins gradually to unfold itself, exposing to view a slender stalk, higher than a man on horseback, with arms extended. On this stalk grow the flowers. Such is the century plant—in botanical language, the Agava Americana.
The juice of the maguey, in its unfermented state, is called honey-water. It is gathered from the central basin by cutting off a side-leaf and cutting out the heart, just before the sprouting of the hampe, for whose sustenance this juice is destined. The basin, thus formed, yields every day from four to seven quarts—according to the size and thriftiness of the plant—for a period of two or three months. The process of taking it out of the plant is a little curious. Into the end of a long gourd is inserted a cow's horn, bored at the point; through this horn and into the gourd the juice is sucked up by applying the mouth to a hole in the opposite side of the gourd. From the gourd-shell the juice is emptied into a bottle formed from the skin of a hog, which still retains much of the form of the animal. To form this bottle of honey-water into pulque, all that is necessary is to put into it a little of the same material which has been laid aside till it became sour, which operates like yeast, causing the honey-water to ferment.
As soon as the maguey juice in the hog-skin has fermented, it is pulque; and is readily sold for eight, and sometimes as high as twenty-five cents a quart, producing a very large revenue upon the cost of the plant. It is not ordinarily sold at wholesale; but each maguey estate has its retail shops in town, from which the whole product of the estate is retailed out. One man, who has five of these shops in the city of Mexico, keeps his carriage; and is reckoned, among the magnates of the land, deriving from this source alone, it is said, $25,000 a year. The excise which Government derives from the sale of this liquor, which, in taste, resembles sour butter-milk, amounted to $817,739 in the year 1793.
PEROTE.
The traveler from the coast always arrives at Perote at a late hour; and