Notes
lib. 7, cap. 9-12. See, also, Gama, Descripcion, Parte i, pp. 52-54.—Clavigero, Stor. Del Messico tom. ii. pp. 84-86.) The English reader will find more brilliant colouring of the same scene in the canto of Madoc, above cited,—On the Close of the Century.
Page 76 (1).—This latter grain, according to Humboldt, was found by the Europeans in the New World, from the south of Chili to Pennsylvania (Essai Politique, tom. ii. p. 408); he might have added, to the St. Lawrence. Our puritan fathers found it in abundance on the New England coast, wherever they landed. See Morton, New England's Memorial. (Boston, 1826), p. 68.—Gookin, Massachusetts Historical Collections, chap. 3.
Page 77 (1).—Torquemada, Monarch, Ind., lib. 13, cap. 31. "Admirable example for our times," exclaims the good father, "when women are not only unfit for the labours of the field, but have too much levity to attend to their own household!"
Page 77 (2).—A striking contrast also to the Egyptians, with whom some antiquaries ire disposed to identify the ancient Mexicans. Sophocles notices the effiminacy of the men in Egypt, who stayed at home tending the loom, while their wives were employed in severe labours out of doors. "They twain, so little in nature and way of life to the usage of Egypt, where the men sit within the house, working at the loom, while their consorts in the fields tend the produce which provides sustenance."—Sophocl., (Œdip. Col., v. 337-341.
Page 77 (3).—Torquemada, Monarch. Ind., lib. 3, cap. 23.—Clavigero, Stor. del Messico, tom. ii. pp. 153-155. "Jamas padeciéron hambre," says the former writer, "sino en pocas ocasiones." If these famines were rare, they were very distressing, however, and lasted very long.—Comp. Ixtlilxochitl, Hist. Chich., MS., cap. 41, 71, et alibi.
Page 77 (4).—Oviedo considers the musa an important plant; and Hernandez, in hit copious catalogue, makes no mention of it at all. But Humboldt, who has given much attention to it, concludes, that if some species were brought into the country, others were indigenous.—(Essai Politique, tom. ii. pp. 382-388.) If we may credit Clavigero, the banana was the forbidden fruit that tempted our poor mother Eve!—Stor. del Messico, tom. i. p. 49, nota.
Page 78 (1).—Rel. d'un gent., ap. Ramusio, tom. iii. fol. 306.—Hernandez, De Historia Plantarum Novæ Hispaniæ (Matriti, 1790), lib. 6, cap. 87.
Page 78 (2).—Carta del Lic. Zuazo, MS. He extols the honey of the maize, as equal to that of the bees. (Also Oviedo, Hist. Natural de las Indias, cap. 4, ap. Barcia, tom. i.) Hernandez, who celebrates the manifold ways in which the maize was prepared, derives it from the Haytian word mabiz.—Hist. Plantarum, lib. 6, cap. 44, 45.
Page 78 (3).—And is still, in one spot at least, San Angel,—three leagues from the capital. Another mill was to have been established a few years since in Puebla. Whether this has actually been done I am ignorant.—See the Report of the Committee on Agriculture to the Senate of the United States, March 12, 1838.
Page 78 (4).—Before the Revolution, the duties on the pulque formed so important a branch of revenue, that the cities of Mexico, Puebla, and Toluca alone paid 8817,739 to government. (Humboldt, Essai Politique, tom. ii. p. 47.) It requires time to reconcile Europeans to the peculiar flavour of this liquor, on the merits of which they are consequently much divided. There is but one opinion among the natives. The English reader will find a good account of its manufacture in Ward's Mexico, vol. ii. pp. 55-60.
Page 79 (1).—Hernandez enumerates the several species of the maguey, which are turned to these manifold uses, in his learned work, De Hist. Plantarum. (Lib. 7, cap. 71, et seq.) M. de Humboldt considers them all varieties of the agave Americana, familiar in the southern parts, both439
