our barber's shops, where they wash and shave their heads. There are houses where they supply food and drink for payment. There are men, such as in Castile are called porters, who carry burdens. There is much wood, charcoal, braziers made of earthenware, and mats of divers kinds for beds, and others, very thin, used as cushions, and for carpeting halls, and bed-rooms. There are all sorts of vegetables, and especially onions, leeks, garlic, borage, nasturtium, water-cresses, sorrel, thistles, and artichokes. There are many kinds of fruits, amongst others cherries, and prunes, like the Spanish ones. They sell bees-honey and wax, and honey made of corn stalks, which is as sweet and syrup-like as that of sugar, also honey of a plant called maguey,[1] which is better than most; from these same plants they make sugar and wine, which they also sell.
They also sell skeins of different kinds of spun cotton, in all colours, so that it seems quite like one of the silk markets of Granada, although it is on a greater scale; also as many different colours for painters as can be found in Spain and of as excellent hues. They sell deer skins with all the hair tanned on them, and of different colours; much earthenware, exceedingly good, many sorts of pots, large and small, pitchers, large tiles, an infinite variety of vases, all of very singular clay, and most of them glazed and painted. They sell maize, both in the grain and made into bread, which is very superior in its quality to that of the other islands and mainland; pies of birds, and fish, also much fish, fresh, salted, cooked,
- ↑ The whitish, slippery, fermented liquor called pulque is extracted from the maguey and is still the popular drink in Mexico; as it must be drunk fresh, special pulque trains daily carry supplies to towns along the railway lines. Flavoured with pineapple, strawberry, and other fresh fruit juices, and well iced, it is a very good drink, wholesome, and only intoxicating if drunk immoderately. The manufacture and sale of the fiery spirit, mescal, also drawn from the maguey, are under careful restrictions and it is as destructive as absinthe.
