The national beverage of the Mexican is the well-known _pulque_, a fermented and intoxicating drink made from the _maguey_, and elsewhere described. Coffee is much esteemed by the _peones_, and purchased when circumstances will allow, and tea also, although in lesser degree. Milk and butter are scarce, and rarely used by the _peones_, but cheese made from goats' milk is a favourite article of diet. Meat is often used--when obtainable--dried, in strips, generally of beef. Mutton, or _carne de borrego_ is consumed to some extent, and goats' flesh more frequently. The Mexican _peon_ is not necessarily particular as to the quality of this meat. If a cow or bullock perishes upon the plain from drought or accident, the villagers soon get wind of the fact and the carcase is cut up and appropriated in short order. Indeed, the flesh of horses is not despised at times! And, as may be supposed, there are no troublesome municipal restrictions or health officers in such places to interpose authority against the practice, and the struggle for life, especially upon the great plateau, is keen. Of course, as we rise in the social scale a large variety of foods are consumed, of excellent quality and unstinted quantity, such as we have described in speaking of the upper class. Even here, however, a Mexican "Mrs. Beeton" would have to describe a number of novel and appetising dishes of national character, and peculiar to the country. The _peon_, like his superior the educated and wealthy Mexican, is excessively fond of tobacco. His cigarette is his great solace and enjoyment. No manufactured and papered article is the _peones'_ cigarette. The dried husk of the _maiz_ is taken and cut into pieces of the required size. Into this he sprinkles a small portion of strong tobacco and rolling it into a thin roll in a certain dexterous way, smokes it without necessity of gumming or fastening the edge. These cigarettes have a distinctive and agreeable taste and aroma, and the foreigner who has grown accustomed to them will certainly find nothing superior in the machine-made cigarettes of the United States or Great Britain--especially the former. The upper-class Mexican does not use these cigarettes of _hoja de maiz_, or _maiz_ husk, but unceasingly smokes either the imported Havannas, or the Mexican paper-covered varieties, which are generally excellent.