Humboldt’s remarks on the small consumption of salt in Mexico are curious.  The average amount used with food is only a small fraction of the European average.  While the Tlascalans were at war with the Aztecs, they had to do without salt for many years, as it was not produced in their district.  Humboldt thinks that the chile which the Indians consume in such quantities acts as a substitute.  It is to be remembered that the soil is impregnated with both salt and natron in many of these upland districts, and the inhabitants may have eaten earth containing these ingredients, as they do for the same purpose in several places in the Old World.

We disembarked after sailing to the end of these great evaporating pans, and found horses waiting to take us to the Bosque del Contador.  This is a grand square, looking towards the cardinal points, and composed of ahuehuetes, grand old deciduous cypresses, many of them forty feet round, and older than the discovery of America.  My companion, not content with buying collections at secondhand, wished to have some excavations made on his own account, and very judiciously fixed on this spot, where, though there were no buildings standing, the appearance of the ground and the mounds in the neighbourhood, together with the historical notoriety of the place, made it probable that something would be found to repay a diligent search.  This expectation was fully realized, and some fine idols of hard stone were found, with an infinitude of pottery and small objects.

When I look through my notes about Tezcuco, I do not find much more to mention, except that a favourite dish here consists of flies’ eggs fried.  These eggs are deposited at the edge of the lake, and the Indians fish them out and sell them in the market-place.  So large is the quantity of these eggs, that at a spot where a little stream deposits carbonate of lime, a peculiar kind of travertine is forming which consists of masses of them imbedded in tho calcareous deposit.

The flies[14] which produce these eggs are called by the Mexicans “axayacatl” or “water-face.”  There was a celebrated Aztec king who was called Axayacatl; and his name is indicated in the picture-writings by a drawing of a man’s face covered with water.  The eggs themselves are sold in cakes in the market, pounded and cooked, and also in lumps au naturel, forming a substance like the roe of a fish.  This is known by the characteristic name of “ahuauhtli”, that is “water-wheat."[15]

The last thing we did at Tezcuco, was to witness the laying down of a new line of water-pipes for the saltworks.  This I mention because of the pipes, which were exactly those introduced into Spain by the Moors and brought here by tho Spaniards.  These pipes are of glazed earthenware, taper at one end, and each fitting into the large end of the next.  The cement is a mixture of lime, fat, and hair, which gets hard and firm when cold, but can be loosened by a very slight application