COCOA AND SOMETHING OF ITS HISTORY. 



ALTHOUGH much has been written about the cultivation, manu- 

 facture and uses of Cocoa, together with its advantages as 

 an article of food, the subject is one of so much interest to 

 the community, that information relative to the primary origin 

 of " the most grateful and nourishing of our non-alcoholic drinks" 

 cannot fail to be appreciated. 



Our knowledge of cocoa as an article of diet dates from the dis- 

 covery of the Western world by Columbus, who, we are told, took 

 ho:ne with him samples of the article, "which early attached itself 

 to the Spaniards' tastes." History informs us that the Spaniards were 

 the first who tasted chocolate, which was part of their spoil in the 

 conquest of Mexico. Bernardo de Castile, who accompanied Cortez, 

 describing one of Montezuma's banquets, says: "They brought in 

 among the dishes above fifty great jars made of ' Cacao,' with its 

 froth, and drank it," similar jars being served to the guards and at- 

 tendants, "to the number of 2,000 at least." Gage, an old traveler 

 who visited the tropics, writing in 1630, remarks: " Our English and 

 Hollanders make little use of it when they take a prize at sea, as not 

 knowing the secret virtue and quality of it for the good of the 

 stomach." For many years the cultivation of the cocoa tree was con- 

 fined to the Spanish, who, in South America and some of the West 

 India islands, carried on the cultivation to a large extent. From their 

 first settlement in Trinidad, we are told that "it seems probable the 

 Spaniards cultivated the tree, and thoroughly understood its value, 

 the prepared article being always much esteemed in the then opulent 

 mother country. The British colonists seem only to have cultivated 

 it when the crops failed, and to have acquired but a limited taste for 

 the article in its prepared state." We may take it for granted that 

 the "prepared state" of cocoa two or three centuries ago was very 

 different to the prepared cocoa of the present day, the appliances for 

 producing the delicious and sustaining preparations only having been 

 introduced during recent years. Cocoa was much esteemed as a 

 beverage in this country during the reign of Charles II., and at that 

 period Dr. Stubbe published a book entitled "The Indian Nectar, or 

 a Discourse Concerning Chocolate, &c.," in which the author gives a 

 history of that article, and many curious notions respecting its 

 "secret virtue," and recommends his readers to buy it of one Mor- 

 timer, "an honest, though poor man," who lived in East Smithfield, 

 and sold the best kind at 6s. 8d. per pound, and commoner sorts at 

 about half that price. 



