ends, and exceedingly pungent in flavour. Excellent pulque is another of its products. Pulque, the national liquor of Mexico, is made from the saccharine juice of the American aloe, which attains maturity at the age of eight or fourteen years, and then flowers. Only while it is flowering may the juice be collected. The central stem which encloses the coming flower is cut off near the bottom, and a basin or hollow exposed, over which the surrounding leaves are closely gathered and fastened. The juice distils into the reservoir thus provided, and is removed three or four times during the twenty-four hours, by means of a syphon made of a species of gourd called acojote. One end is placed in the liquor, the other in the mouth of the operator, who by suction draws up the sweet fluid into the pipe, and forces it out into a bowl. Afterwards it receives the addition of a little old pulque, and is allowed to ferment for two or three days in earthen jars. When fresh, pulque, according to Mr. Ruxton, is brisk and sparkling, and the most cooling, refreshing, and delectable drink ever invented for mortals when athirst. The Mexicans call it “vino divino;” but, admirable as may be its qualities, it needs to be very temperately used.
Between Queretaro and Celaya the traveller gradually descends from the table-lands, and the air comes upon him with a warm tropical breath. Nopalos, or prickly-pears, line the road; the Indians collect the fruit – which is savoury and invigorating – with a forked stick. At Silao striking evidence of the geniality of the climate is supplied by the variety of fruit exposed for sale: oranges, lemons, grapes, chirimoyas, batatas, platanos, plantains, cumotes, grenadillas, mamayos, tunas, pears, and apples – a list which would have delighted Keats’s Porphyro when he was preparing a refection for his lady-love Madeline. But if fruit be abundant, so are beggars and thieves; and Silao is not a comfortable place to live in! Mexico, according to its climatic conditions, is divided into three great divisions – the Tierras Frias, or Cold lands; the Tierras Templadas, or Temperate lands; and the Tierras Calientes, or Hot lands. From Celaya our travellers stooped down rapidly into the Tierra Caliente, and the increased temperature was every day more perceptibly felt. Jalisco, the most important town on their route, is situated on the western declivity of Anahuac, a Cordillera which unites the Andes of South and Central America with the great North American chain of the Rocky Mountains. Mr. Ruxton describes the table-land on the western ridge of the Cordillera as blessed with a fertile soil and a temperate climate. It is studded with the populous towns of Silao, Leon, Lagos, and Aguas Calientes. The central portion, of a lower elevation and consequently higher temperature, produces cotton, cochineal, vanilla, as well as every variety of cereal produce. While the littoral, or coast region, teems with fertility, and lies in the shadow of immense forests, unfortunately it is cursed by the ever-prevalent vomito, or yellow fever, and its climate is scarcely less fatal to its inhabitants than to strangers.
At La Villa de Leon, a town celebrated for robbers and murderers, Mr. Ruxton met with an adventure. About nine o’clock in the evening he was returning from the plaza, which with its great lighted fires, the stalls of the market-people, the strange garb of the peasantry, and the snow-white sarapos, or cloaks, of the idlers of the town, presented a stirring aspect, when, striking into a dark and narrow street, a group of vagabonds, at the door of a pulque shop, detected that he was a stranger, and, mistaking his nationality, yelled at him: “Let’s kill him, the Texan!” Having no weapon but a bowie-knife, and not desiring an encounter with such overwhelming numbers, he turned off into another street; but the rascals followed him, renewing their wild cries. Happily, a dark doorway invited him to seek its shelter, and while crouching in its obscurity, he could see them rush by, knives in hand. When he thought they had all passed, he stepped forth, to find himself confronted by three wretches who brought up the rear, and who, brandishing their knives and rushing headlong at him, cried, “Here he is, here he is; kill him!” As the foremost rushed at him with uplifted blade, he swiftly stepped aside, and at the same moment thrust at him with his bowie. The robber fell on his knees with a cry of “Me ha matado!” (“He has killed me!”), and fell on his face. One of his companions hastened to his assistance; the other dashed upon Mr. Ruxton, but, confused by his calm attitude of preparation, fell back a few paces, and finally slunk away. Mr. Ruxton returned at once to his quarters, ordered out the horses, and in a few minutes was on his road.
By way of Aguas Calientes, a very pretty town, and Zacatecas, a populous mining town, he proceeded towards the Hacienda (or farm) of San Nicolas, with the view of traversing that singular volcanic region, the Mal Pais. Down to a comparatively recent period, it would seem to have been the theatre of plutonic phenomena of an extraordinary character. The convexity of the district enables the traveller to judge very readily of the extent of the convulsion, which has spread to a distance of twelve or fourteen miles from the central crater. The said crater measures about fifteen hundred feet in circumference, and its sides are covered with dwarf oaks, mezquito, and cocoa trees, which find a rich nourishment in the chinks and crevices of the lava. At the bottom stagnate the green and slimy waters of a small lake, which is fringed with rank shrubs and cacti, growing among huge blocks of lava and scoriæ. Not a breath of air disturbs its inky surface, save when a huge water-snake undulates across it, or a duck and her progeny swim out from their covert among the bushes.
“I led my horse,” says Mr. Ruxton, “down to the edge of the water, but he refused to drink the slimy liquid, in which frogs, efts, and reptiles of every kind were darting and diving. Many new and curious water-plants floated near the margin, and one, lotus-leaved, with small delicate tendrils, formed a kind of network on the water, with a superb crimson flower, which exhibited a beautiful contrast with the inky blackness of the pool. His Mexicans, as they passed this spot, crossed themselves reverently, and muttered an Ave Maria; for in the lonely regions of the Mal Pais, the superstitious Indian believes that demons and gnomes and spirits of evil persons have their dwelling-places, whence they not unfrequently pounce upon the solitary traveller, to carry him into the cavernous bowels of the earth. The arched roof of the supposed prison-house resounding to the tread of their horses as they pass the dreaded spot, they feel a sudden dread, and, with rapidly muttered prayers, they handle their amulets and charms to drive away the treacherous bogies who invisibly beset the path.”
From the Mal Pais Mr. Ruxton travelled onward to the rancho of La Punta, a famous cattle-breeding station.
In the preceding autumn it had been harried by a party of Comanche Indians, who, one day, without warning, rode across the sierra and swooped down upon it, killing, as they passed, the peones, or labourers, whom they found at work in the road. On their appearance the men made no attempt to defend the rancho, but fled at full speed, abandoning the women and children to their terrible fate. Some were carried away captives; some pierced with arrows and lances, and left for dead; others made the victims of unspeakable outrages. The ranchero’s wife, with her two adult daughters and several younger children, fled from the rancho at the first alarm, to conceal themselves under a wooden bridge, which crossed a neighbouring stream. For several hours they escaped detection; but at last some Indians drew near their hiding-place, and a young chief took his station on the bridge to issue his commands. With keen eyes he examined the spot, and discovered the terror-stricken fugitives; but he pretended not to have seen them, playing with them as a cat might with a mouse. He hoped, he was heard to say, that he should find out where the women were concealed, for he wanted a Mexican wife and a handful of scalps. Then he leaped from the bridge, and thrust his lance under it with a yell of exultation; the point pierced the woman’s arm, and she shrieked aloud. She and her children were forthwith drawn from their retreat.
“Alas, alas, what a moment was that!” said the poor woman, as she told her painful story. The savages brandished their tomahawks around her children, and she thought that the last farewell had been taken. They behaved, however, with unusual clemency; the captives were released, and allowed to return to their home – to find it a wreck, and the ground strewn with the dead bodies of their kinsmen and friends.
“Ay de mi!” (“Woe is me!”)
While at La Punta, our traveller was witness of the Mexican sport of the “Coléa de toros” (or “bull-tailing”), for the enjoyment of which two or three hundred rancheros had assembled from the neighbouring plantations.
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