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It was at the inn where we stopped to breakfast that we made our first acquaintance with the great Mexican institutions tortillas and pulque. The pulque was being brewed on a large scale in an adjoining building. Pulque, as you drink it, looks like milk and water, and has a mild smell and taste of rotten eggs.
This opened at last and I entered a mud room in one end of which a fire of sticks blazed fitfully. A woman of perhaps forty, though appearing much older, as is the case with most women of Honduras, lay on a wooden bed and a girl of ten huddled among rags near the fire. I asked for food and the woman ordered the girl to heat me black coffee and tortillas.
"I will take these, my mother," he said in Mexican, and leaning over he snatched up half a dozen gloriously hot tortillas and frijoles. A cry of indignation and anger was checked at the old woman's lips as two small silver coins slipped from the boy's hands, and tinkled pleasantly together in her own. Holding his spoils in his hands Ned walked swiftly up the street.
He was here prompted by no devotional impulse, but to watch and mark some intended victim. As we came out of the cathedral, long lines of natives were seen, men, women, and children, sitting on the edge of the sidewalks, or squatting near the low garden wall of the church, eating tortillas, while an earthen jar of pulque was occasionally passed among them, all drinking from the same vessel.
"I shouldn't want to eat the red rooster, anyway," said Tita. "He seems just like a member of the family." And so the Christmas dinner was settled that way. The turkey wasn't the only thing they had. There was rice soup first, then turkey, and they had frijoles, and tortillas, of course, and bananas beside, and all the sweet potatoes cooked in syrup that they could possibly hold.
Taking a good mouthful, I felt as though I had taken liquid fire; the tomato was chile colorado, or red pepper, of the purest kind. It nearly killed me, and I saw Gomez's eyes twinkle, for he saw that his share of supper was increased. I contented myself with bits of the meat, and an abundant supply of tortillas. Ord was better case-hardened, and stood it better.
For sustenance, the filibusters had the fruits around Rivas, and a small ration of tortillas and beef, furnished them daily by Walker's commissary. The beef, as we heard, was supplied by Senor Pineda, General Walker's most powerful and faithful friend amongst the natives; and the tortillas were bought from the native women in the neighborhood of Rivas.
"Oh, yes," replied Cuchillo, with a certain air of foppishness, "I treat myself well. It makes me happy to know that the dish is to your liking; I beg to assure you, it is quite at your service." "You are very good, and I accept your offer without ceremony. The morning air has sharpened my appetite." And saying this, Baraja proceeded to the mastication of the tassajo and tortillas.
He seated himself in the chair by the table, his supper of black beans, meat, cheese, and tortillas was brought and dispatched without the aid of either knife or fork, and then he turned his attention to our entertainment.
No excuse for lying abed was accepted; up, and on the floor we knelt, then she passed on to where the mayordomo, or foreman, and his men were gathering in the courtyard. Here, too, was the cook with the Indian maids, busy making tortillas for the morning meal. 'Your Albas, my children, my mother would say in her clear, firm voice.
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