CHAPTER VII.
In the Stage and out of the Stage.--Still climbing.--A moment's View of all the Kingdoms of the World.--Again in obscurity.--The Maguey, or Century Plant.--The many uses of the Maguey.--The intoxicating juice of the Maguey.--Pulque.--Immense Consumption of Pulque.--City of Perote.--Castle of San Carlos de Perote.--Starlight upon the Table-land.--Tequisquita.--"The Bad Land."--A very old Beggar.--Arrive at Puebla.
The time allotted for my visit to Jalapa had come to a close. I took out the ticket, endorsed _Escala donde le convengo_, which I translated--"Let him stop when, where, and as long as he pleases," and once more took my seat in the stage, which, on a fine afternoon, was starting for Perote upon the table-land. This short journey lay across the mountain of Perote, passing over an elevation of 10,400 feet, the highest elevation that a stage-coach has yet reached, and one from which the traveler can oftentimes enjoy a view of all the vegetable "kingdoms of the world in a moment of time." I took my seat upon the top of the coach, above the driver, that I might enjoy a last lingering look at this Nature's paradise, before 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 as he leaves it again at an early hour next morning, he recollects nothing of it but its chilly night air, and the good supper which he was too cold to enjoy. But on his return from Mexico, he usually has an hour of daylight, which he can improve in a survey of this small and cleanly town. Here the freight-wagons, with their twenty horses apiece, stop to recruit; and the cargo-mules, that take this route, are gathered in the immense stable-yards, which give to the place the appearance of a collection of caravansaries. The whitewash-brush has been industriously applied to the outside of the houses; and though they are chiefly built of that frail material, dried mud, they present a very neat and tidy appearance, giving one a very correct idea of what may have been the appearance of one of the first class of Indian towns in the times of Cortez.
A few rods to the north of the town stands the castle of San Carlos--a square fort, with a moat and glacis. It is built in the best style of fortifications of the last century, having been designed as a depository for silver, when, in consequence of the wars of Spain with maritime nations, it was not deemed prudent to send it forward to the coast: it was much used for this purpose when the road below was blocked up, in the times of the insurrection, that began in the year 1810. At one time the accumulation here was so great that it is said to have amounted to 40,000,000 of silver dollars; weighing about 1300 tons, or a little short of the whole silver export of two years. This castle is now in a fine state of repair. It has a large garrison of lancers, and at the time of my visit was daily in expectation of the arrival of Santa Anna. From this castle Santa Anna, in 1828, issued his _pronunciamiento_ against Pedraza. In this castle he was imprisoned by Rincon, in 1845, after his capture at Xico. From this castle he was banished by decree of the Mexican Congress; and to it he was now returning to hold the supreme power in the State.
At two o'clock in the morning we were aroused from our comfortable beds to take our places in the stage; and soon we were again upon the road. There is something exceedingly attractive in the appearance of the skies upon this elevated table-land, 7692 feet above the ocean. The morning star-light is very beautiful. It is so much clearer, and the stars are therefore so much brighter here than in the dense atmosphere where we inhabit, that the traveler, half chilled and sleeping, rouses himself to contemplate the brilliant sights above him. The brightest stars that he has watched from childhood up, are brighter now than ever. New stars have filled the voids in his celestial chart, and satellites are dancing round well-known planets. The North Star is still visible, now 19 deg. above the horizon. The Dipper has dipped far down to the northward. The Southern Cross--that mysterious combination of five stars, that emblem of the faith of Southern America, which only reaches full meridian at midnight prayers--is here 25 deg. above the horizon, shining brilliantly. And then there are so many unknown southern stars, and so many unfamiliar constellations, that the short hours of night are well spent upon the driver's box.
We have been gradually descending into what appears to have once been the bottom of a salt lake. The ground is partially incrusted with a compound salt called _tequisquita_, is composed of equal proportions of muriate of soda, carbonate of soda, and insoluble metal (common earth): this compound is used by the Mexican bakers and soap-boilers as a substitute for salt and soda. A stinted grass is here and there scattered in patches over the _bad land_, as these barren plains are called; but the dry earth, which is rarely moistened for six months together, is covered with drifting sand, which is driven about by the hot winds of this desert.
How great was the change from what we had passed! The celestial chart, that we had been admiring with so much rapture, had gradually rolled itself up, and as the sun came out, we had a view of the dreariness around us. It was truly a _bad land_--a land of evil--even a land for wolves to prowl in, and where vultures watch for the carcasses of dying mules, and where robbers ply their calling with little fear of detection. Here, in the midst of all this dreariness, we saw a pretty lake, and beautiful scenery around it, that looked for a little while like an enchanted scene, and then vanished into air. We passed the hostelry of Tepeyagualco, where water is drawn from a fabulous depth, and soon came to that most celebrated spring of fresh water, situated upon the boundary-line of the two departments of Vera Cruz and Puebla, and bearing the poetical name of "The Eye of Waters." But we were followed by a driving storm of sand all the way to Nopaluca, where we breakfasted at twelve o'clock.
AGED BEGGAR.
As we came out from breakfast we encountered an old beggar, whom I had often seen before at this place. He was so old that Time seemed to have forgotten him, and he too had forgotten Time. He could only reach his age by approximation: he recollected that his third son was earning day-wages when the decree came (in 1767) for the expulsion of the Jesuits. This would make the old beggar 130 years of age, if we call the son eighteen, and the father twenty-five at the time of his birth. Poor old man! how much he has suffered from outliving his own kindred. One after another he has followed to the grave his children and his children's children, to the third and fourth generation, till now the lad that leads him by the hand, the only link that binds him to the race of the living, is of the sixth generation.
Toward evening, after we had passed the storm of dust, we came to the large village of Amosoque, which is the only town of any magnitude between Perote and Puebla. It is noted for its excellent spurs; and was formerly much more noted as a haunt of robbers. From this village we were driven in a little more than an hour to the city of Puebla.