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Updated: May 25, 2025
The temperate climate of the table-land furnished them with the maguey, agave Americana, many of the extraordinary qualities of which they comprehended, though not its most important one of affording a material for paper. Tobacco, too, was among the products of this elevated region. This is a shrub which grows to the height of a man.
Here grow an abundance of broad-leaved plants, and for thread there is the fibre of the maguey, or century plant; while the thorns of the cactus are the needles used among the natives; so that all the materials were at ready hand for making their garments, as soon as our first parents had their eyes opened by taking Jalap, I suppose and so discovering that they were naked.
The famous image, according to the current story, disappeared soon after the Conquest, but was found about 150 years afterward in a maguey plant, and was as much dilapidated as if it had been exposed to the weather for the whole of that century and a half.
To prevent scurvy we used the juice of the maguey plant, called pulque, and to obtain a supply of this anti-scorbutic I was often detailed to march the company out about forty miles, cut the plant, load up two or three wagons with the stalks, and carry them to camp.
The distant fields of maguey, the verdant patches of alfalfa, luxuriant meadows, groups of grazing cattle, and the two arched stone aqueducts are all prominent features presenting themselves to the eye, together with the gardens and villas of Tacubaya and San Angel.
But this represents the better class of cabin, the majority having only a thatched covering supported by small branches of trees trimmed for the purpose, over which are placed dried banana and maguey leaves. Some of the floors had stone tiles, but most of them consisted of the uncovered earth. These last must be wretchedly unwholesome in the brief rainy season.
Mexico had a wonderful collection, native books on Maguey paper, amulets of gold, sculpture, carved idols, remarkable lookin', though I wouldn't worship one on 'em not for a dollar bill. Egypt, where Civilization first started, had to crumple down and send her best treasures to the fur away West. Oh, how fur, how fur Civilization has traveled since she left the Lotus land.
Our course lies through broad maguey fields and across the Atoyac River, a shallow stream most of the year; but at times it becomes a rushing torrent. The country hereabouts is under excellent cultivation, though the awkward plough introduced by the Spaniards centuries ago still does service here.
Beggars are few and there is none of the oppressive poverty of other Mexican cities. This, it is agreed, is due not merely to the extreme fertility of Jalisco, but to the kindness of nature in refusing to produce the maguey in the vicinity, so that drunkenness is at its lowest Mexican ebb and the sour stink of pulque shops nowhere assails the nostrils.
The Agua miel is collected in ox-skins, placed like troughs on four stakes, where the liquor ferments; in about seventy-two hours it is ready for delivery to those that use it, among whom must be placed many Europeans. A maguey plant is serviceable in producing sap for two or three months.
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