Chapter VI: On the Great Table-Land

South of San Luis Potosí there was some dry and shriveled corn, standing in shocks. The first planted fields of maguey appeared. As we rose to the mile-and-a-half altitude this source of Mexico’s chief beverage became more and more frequent, until maguey lined the railway and covered the rolling plains to the distant mountain rim. Sometimes the long, straight, emerald-green rows climbed broad high ridges, and vanished. Near at hand each plant resembled a huge artichoke, more blue than green, thus adding another color to the landscape. The maguey and cactus belong to related families.

When the maguey plant is about seven years old it flowers and dies—though its roots live and develop into another plant. Just before blossoming time, the base of the plant is cut out in the shape of a great bowl. The sap or juice runs into this rapidly, five or six quarts a day, and flows for three or four months, giving barrels of a milky fluid. The Mexicans call this _agua-miel_ or “honey water.” Hawkers go about the streets and along the platforms of railroad stations shouting “Agua-miel!” For the twelve hours before it begins to ferment, this juice of the maguey is sweet and clear, and can do no one any harm.

In some of the maguey fields along the railroad I saw peons with untanned pigskin sacks over their backs, trot from plant to plant, part the pulpy leaves, and bend over the central pool in the hollow of the maguey. Each carried a long gourd, and when he had sucked this full of the sap he poured it into the pigskin sack. As soon as the sack was full, he trotted away to the plantation house with it.

The Best-Known Mexican Beverage

A little of the fermented “honey water” is added to the fresh juice, which then ferments very rapidly, and quickly becomes what the Mexicans call _pulque_. If left to ferment naturally, the maguey juice, for a day after the process begins, looks like skim milk and tastes rather like buttermilk. During that time it becomes more and more intoxicating. After thirty-six hours it is fit only to be thrown away. In some cities _pulque_-vendors are not allowed to sell it after it is twenty-four hours old. But most of them disobey the law and keep it much too long. When it is highly fermented, _pulque_ becomes a poison that makes those who drink it want to go out and kill someone—unless they first fall stupefied in the gutter. A blind man could find a _pulquería_ (_pulque_ saloon) by the sour stench of _agua-miel_ that has been kept too long, and only a man with the taste of a Mexican peon could drink it after it has reached that stage.

Keystone View Co., Inc.

The Mexican extracts _agua-miel_ from the maguey by sucking it up into
a gourd. It is this juice which ferments and becomes _pulque_.
]

Early-morning trains loaded with _pulque_ roll into the capital and the other large cities of Mexico. They are like our milk trains, but seem even more numerous. Two hundred thousand gallons of _pulque_ are drunk in Mexico City every twenty-four hours. That means an average of six glasses a day for every man, woman and child in the capital; and as few foreigners or well-to-do Mexicans drink it, those who do must surely drink more than six glasses.

Every day more than $10,000 in Mexican money, all from the pockets of the poor, passes over the counters of Mexico City’s two thousand _pulquerías_. The saloons have gaudy fronts, crude paintings, and vulgar or blasphemous names, such as “The Rest-House of St. Peter.” About them gather ragged Indians who look as if they had not had a real meal for weeks, but had spent for _pulque_ everything they could earn, beg, borrow or steal.

Luckily _pulque_ comes only from the highlands, and sours too quickly to be transported very far. It spoils even more quickly than milk, so that it is unknown in the lowlands, and even in some parts of the plateau. The contrast between the gloomy people of the Mexican highlands and the more cheerful ones of the tropical regions is not due entirely to the difference in natural surroundings, but is accounted for partly by the fact that the former have _pulque_ and the latter do not.

The Mexicans made _pulque_ before the Spaniards came. Drunkenness was not unknown even then; it is very common now. If _pulque_ cannot be widely distributed, the Mexicans know how to make other liquor that can be. They boil the lower leaves of the maguey and distill from them _mescal_ or _tequila_. This drink, a stimulant as strong as whiskey or brandy, is held responsible for most of the acts of violence committed in Mexico.

A street stand where _pulque_, the Mexican maguey beer, is sold. In
the background is an election poster.
]

There has been some agitation for prohibition in Mexico. All the efforts are directed against _pulque_, the poor man’s drink. The big _hacendados_, or landowners, are nearly all opposed to what they call a “fool reform” because they make their fortunes from the _pulque_ which they send to the capital. A recent law makes it illegal to plant any more maguey, and perhaps the time will come when the stuff that befuddles the people of the Mexican highlands will be as unknown there as it is elsewhere.

My First Tramp in Mexico

I left the train one morning at the station of Dolores Hidalgo. The town itself, I found, was several miles from the station. A tiny mule-drawn street car covered the distance, but I preferred to walk. On the way I met a beggar riding a donkey. He answered my “Buenos dias” (“Good morning”) with a whine of “A little alms, _caballero_.” As _caballero_ is the Spanish word for horseman (though it has come to mean “gentleman”) it seemed strange to me to be called that by a man who was riding while I was on foot.

In this house in the town of Dolores Hidalgo lived the priest who in
1810 started the revolution against Spanish rule.
]

Dolores Hidalgo is named for the priest who began the Mexican revolution against Spanish rule. He lived in this quiet little town with its two enormous churches, and travelers may still see his house, where most of the furniture is just as he left it when he was captured and executed by the Spaniards. From Dolores Hidalgo I struck off across the country toward the important city of Guanajuato. There was no road except a trail or path that now and then seemed to lose itself. Fences are almost as unknown in Mexico as they are in China, and when I heard bulls bellowing savagely not far from me, I looked about for a tree to climb in case of need. However, the region resembled China in its treelessness as well as in the scarcity of fences. There were forests of cactus almost as big as trees, but it would have been a painful job to climb one of those spiny things.

A Mexican village in which I spent a night. Such _adobe_ (mud-brick)
houses roofed with thatch are found in many parts of Mexico.
]

I saw that the ground along the way was dotted with tunas, which we call cactus apples. These are bright red when ripe, very full of seeds, but quite juicy and rather good, at least for thirst. But you must not forget to peel off the thick outside rind, or you will think you are eating a cushion full of pins. Before it is peeled the tuna is harder to handle than a porcupine, leaving the fingers full of little spines that are very hard to remove. A curious thing about the cactus apple is that it grows on the edge of the plant’s leaves, sometimes a dozen apples encircling one leaf.

A Cold Lodging

That night I slept in an Indian hut made of _adobe_ (mud and straw bricks baked in the sun) and grass. My lodging cost me three Mexican cents. The Mexican dollar and cent, by the way, are worth only half as much as our own. My bed was a reed mat about three feet long, and my room was really the family barnyard, with chickens and donkeys all about me. For supper the woman served me a bowl of _sopita_ (called “little soup” because it is so thin), corn _tortillas_, white cheese, and boiled peppers. The boy of the family wandered about eating cornstalks as if they were sugar cane. I shivered nearly all night, though I was far down in the tropics.

Long before daylight the woman of the house got up and began making _atole_. She took some shelled corn and sprinkled it in the hollow of a large stone. Then she crushed it with a stone rolling-pin, strained it through a sieve, and threw it into boiling water. It took her a whole hour to make the _atole_, and it certainly was not worth the trouble. It was hot, but it tasted like water in which corn husks had been boiled. That was even sadder than the ordinary scant Mexican breakfast. But my bill for supper, lodging and breakfast was only six cents!

All that morning and half the afternoon I tramped along a trail that was sometimes deep in sand or sticky mud, and sometimes a slope of cobblestones thrown together on a steep hillside. I met or overtook many donkeys, loaded with crates of cactus-fruit, railroad ties, ears of corn, and sometimes with women and children. By and by peons or workmen in American overalls began to appear.

Most of them were quite friendly, but some had been drinking, and acted as if they wanted to pick a quarrel. Once, when I sat resting at a high spot on the trail, three drunken peons came stumbling over toward me. One of them, about forty years old, thrust his _pulque_-scented face into mine and demanded a cigarette. But I was watching one of the others, a ragged youth who slowly walked in my direction, with one arm held behind him. He had a very wicked gleam in his eye. Suddenly I jumped up and snatched the hidden hand into sight. It held a large, sharp-pointed piece of broken rock. I knocked this out of his hand, but instead of trying to fight he let his two companions drag him away down the trail. I strolled on after this incident and a few minutes later came out high above the famous mining city of Guanajuato.