CHAPTER IX.

NATURAL PRODUCTIONS OF MEXICO.

Beauty of Mexican scenery-Banana-Its productiveness—Its preparation and use-Cassava-Maize-Maguey — Pulque -Its preparation-Chocolate-Friar Gage's account of its preparation-Plantations of cocoa-Fruits-Tunas — Pineapples-Columnar cacti-Coyol palm-Flowers-OrchidsBird-beaked oncidium - Fourcroya longæva-CochinealIts cultivation Locusts - Their destructiveness - Arab account of them-Tortoises-Turtles and their eggs-Alligators-Aboma-Golden-tree snake-Rhinophryne-Axolotl— Buffaloes-Their herds and hunting-Prairie marmot-Their villages and associates―Jaguar-Cougar-Prong-horned antelope-Virginian opossum- -Racoon-Black vulturesTheir greed and fierceness-Owlets-Quails-Maternal instinct-Parrots: chocollitos-Mocking bird-Curious effects of its song-Humming-birds: Flame-bearer; Sabre-wing; Ruby-throat-The God of nature-Conclusion.

It would require many volumes fully to describe the natural productions of Mexico, as they comprise the choicest gifts conferred on almost every region of the globe. In no country has the munificent hand of the Creator dispersed more lavishly everything that is pleasant to the eye and good for food. Mexico itself is the land of flowers, of stately trees and waving palms and ferns, of clustering vines and blooming cacti. Its shores are laden with the rich vegetation of the tropics; its table-lands, at certain elevations, are smiling in an atmosphere of eternal spring, that nourishes alike

many of the fruits of the temperate and tropical zones, and its wide-spreading plains are clothed with forests of oak and pine or carpeted with fields of corn and maize. When the country was first discovered by the Spaniards they found all the choicest productions of the western hemisphere gathered within its boundaries; and since their entrance the kindly soil has welcomed the introduction of almost every European species which ministers to the wants of man. It is hardly an exaggeration to say that in Mexico the most useful and delicious natural productions of the entire globe may now be gathered.

The beauty of Mexican scenery is wonderfully diversified by this variety of vegetation. On the banks of rivers and in every shaded spot beneath the tropical zone a dense mass of foliage meets the eye-it is a sea

of intense green. Groves of plantain and cocoa-nut trees, alternate with feathery palms and columnar cacti. Beautiful parasites, such as the vanilla, wave in festoons from the tallest trees and dip their long tendrils down into the water as if to drink and carry life to the trunks that bear them. Huge aloes and prickly pears present an almost impenetrable wall. Magnificent orchids jut out abruptly from the branches of living trees or fasten upon the dead trunks that lie scattered in the forests. Whilst the maguey, the tall bending reeds of the sugar cane, and a multitude of other plants, with their fruits and flowers, diversify the landscape. The woods resound with the loud chatter of birds of gaudy plumage: cardinals, catbirds, macaws, and parrots, flit from tree to tree, or swing upon the boughs. Beautiful little humming birds dart to and fro, or hang poised on murmuring wings at the mouth of some favourite flower. Monkeys with noisy chatter and sudden shrieks

chase one another in the branches, or sit demurely watching the passing traveller. Every pool swarms with water-fowl-ducks, cranes and bitterns. The very air seems alive with insects, and at eventide clouds of fire-flies glitter in the twilight. There is, we must admit, a reverse to so fair a picture. Poisonous serpents lurk amidst the long grasses of the forest. Swarms of mosquitoes attack every inch of unprotected skin and irritate the unhappy sufferer almost to madness. And, worse than all, amidst the luxuriant vegetation the deadly malaria takes its rise, whose virulence is so terrible that it decimates the population and has given to Vera Cruz the ill-omened title of "City of the Dead."

From the description we have already given of the character of the Mexicans, our readers will be prepared to learn that full advantage is not taken of these great natural blessings. Jalisco probably enjoys the best situation in point of soil, climate, and communication with the coast, but it is described by Mr. Ruxton as a district "where all tropical productions might be cultivated and are not." Yet the list of fruits which are offered for sale in its markets is sufficiently tempting. It comprises oranges, lemons, grapes, chirimoyas, bananas, platanos, plantains, camotes, granaditas, mamayes, tunas, pears, and apples. Cotton, cochineal, and vanilla, as well as every variety of cereal can be raised ; yet most of these species are abandoned to the spontaneous production of nature, and little or no labour is bestowed upon them. To gather such fruits as grow of themselves, to cultivate very imperfectly a small patch of maize or plantains, and to starve when this ill-tended crop fails him, is the habit of the Mexican Indian. How largely his indolence has been fostered

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by the fertility of his native soil will be seen as we proceed to speak of some individual products.

Foremost amongst the plants which are used for food in Mexico we must place the banana and the plantain. They are as much the staple food of the native population as rice is in India and China." Humboldt questions whether any other kind of plant upon the earth's surface produces so considerable an amount of nourishment as the banana. It is propagated by suckers; and eight or nine months after the sucker is planted the banana begins to come to maturity. The fruit may be gathered in the tenth or eleventh month. When the stem is cut after gathering the fruit, there is generally found among the numerous shoots a scion which has already attained two-thirds of the height of the parent tree, and which bears fruit three months later. So that in a plantation of bananas, it is only necessary to cut down the stems of the ripe fruit, and to dig once or twice a-year about the roots in order to obtain an excellent crop. In the course of a year a plot of ground of a thousand square yards will produce four thousand pounds weight of bananas whereas it would only have yielded about thirty pounds of corn, or ninety pounds of potatoes. Or as corn contains more nutriment than the banana, the comparative productiveness of the two crops will be more truly estimated from the fact that a piece of ground which, if planted with corn would support two persons, will maintain fifty if planted with bananas. Nothing astonishes Europeans more than the extreme smallness of the extent of cultivated land about huts which contain a numerous family of natives.

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The fruit of the banana is consumed in a variety of forms. It is sometimes roasted, sometimes eaten raw.

It is also dried, like figs, in the sun. In this latter form it is very popular with the natives, but Europeans find it hard and indigestible. A sort of farina is also made from it by cutting the green fruit into slices and drying it in the sun, and when it has thus become friable it is reduced to a powder. So productive a plant has had a tendency to encourage indolent habits. In a climate where very little clothing is required, where the heat contributes to enervate the frame, and where nature demands but little sustenance beyond that supplied by vegetable products, the ordinary stimulants to exertion are wanting. With his little plot of ground and his rude hut, the Indian of Mexico was perfectly content, and the Spanish government, which desired to carry off the profits of his increased energy, was frequently urged to arouse the people to further exertions by the destruction of the banana plantations. In many districts of Mexico one man without any fatiguing labour could support an entire family by working two days only in the week.

The same district in which the banana is cultivated produces the jatropha or cassava, from the root of which manioc or tapioca is obtained. There are two species of cassava, the sweet and the bitter. The juice of the latter is poisonous until it has been boiled, when it may be used with impunity. The cultivation of manioc requires more care than that of the banana, and implies a higher degree of civilisation among the people who make use of it. Humboldt remarks that a New Zealander would not have had the patience to wait for so tardy a crop.

It is amusing to read Friar Gage's account of the cassava :- -“It hath,” he writes, "near forty kinds of leaves, which serve for many uses. For when they