bins, the sides would have been removed piecemeal to keep progress with
the diminishing hoard. When the time of planting should be near, the
whole structure but the floor and upright poles would have disappeared.

Next to maize the chief culture among the Otomis is _maguéy_. This forms
division lines between the corn-fields and the village yards, and is
sometimes, though not commonly here, planted in fields. The _maguéy_ is
an agave very close to the century-plant. Manifold are its uses, but to
the Otomi its value is chiefly in two directions. It furnishes _ixtli_
fibre for _ayates_, and it yields _pulque_. For a dozen years
the _maguéy_ plant stores away starchy food in its long, thick,
sharp-pointed leaves. It is the intended nourishment for a great shaft
of flowers. Finally, the flower-bud forms amid the cluster of leaves.
Left to itself the plant now sends all its reserve of food into this
bud, and the great flower-stalk shoots upward at the rate of several
inches daily; then the great pyramid of flowers develops. But man
interferes. The flower-bud is cut out, and a neat, deep cup is fashioned
amid the bases of the cluster of leaves. The sap which should produce
that wonderful growth is poured into this cup. The _pulque_ gatherer,
with his long gourd collecting-tube, and skin carrying-bottle, goes from
plant to plant and gathers the _agua miel_--honey-water. Fermented, it
becomes the whitish, dirty, ropy, sour-tasting, bad-smelling stuff
so dear to the indians. And the Otomi are fond of _pulque_. We were
compelled to do our work in the mornings; in the afternoons everyone was
drunk and limp and useless in the operator's hands.

We slept and ate at the house of the _presidente_, an old _mestizo_
of rather forbidding manners but kindly spirit. Our cases came rather
slowly and a deal of coaxing, argument, and bribes were necessary to
secure them. Here we gave a trifle, a few _centavos_, to each subject.