He began to weep; his heart was stirred, and his mind turned toward the suggestion of his departure, nor did the deceit of the old sorcerer permit him to abandon the thought of it.

The medicine which Quetzalcoatl drank was the white wine of the country, made of those magueys call _teometl_.[1] [Footnote 1: From _teotl_, deity, divine, and _metl_, the maguey.

Of the twenty-nine varieties of the maguey, now described in Mexico, none bears this name; but Hernandez speaks of it, and says it was so called because there was a superstition that a person soon to die could not hold a branch of it; but if he was to recover, or escape an impending danger, he could hold it with ease and feel the better for it.

See Nieremberg, _Historia Naturae_, Lib.

xiv, cap.xxxii.