CACAO PRODUCTION AND SALE 87 



BRAZIL. 



Para and Bahia Cacaos. Brazil has made marked 

 progress in recent years, and has now overtaken Ecu- 

 ador in quantity of produce ; the cacao, however, is 

 quite different from, and not as fine as, that from 

 Guayaquil. The principal cacao comes from the State 

 of Bahia, where the climate is ideal for its cultivation. 

 Indeed so perfect are the natural conditions that for- 

 merly no care was taken in cacao production, and 

 much of that gathered was wild and uncured. During 

 the last decade there has been an improvement, and 

 this would, doubtless, be more noteworthy if the means 

 of transport were better, for .at present the roads are 

 bad and the railways inadequate ; hence most of the 

 cacao is brought down to the city of Bahia in canoes. 

 Nevertheless, Bahia cacao is better fermented than the 

 peculiar cacao of Para, another important cacao from 

 Brazil, 'which is appreciated by manufacturers on 

 account of its mild flavour. Bahia exported in 1919 

 about 51,000 tons of cacao. 



VENEZUELA. 



Caracas, Carupano and Maracaibo Cacaos. Vene- 

 zuela has been called " the classic home of cacao," 

 and had not the chief occupation of its inhabitants 

 been revolution, it would have retained till now the 

 important position it held a hundred years ago. It is in 

 this enchanted country (it was at La Guayra in Caracas, 

 as readers of Westward Ho ! will remember, that 

 Amyas found his long-sought Rose) that the finest 

 cacao in the world is produced : the criollo, the bean 

 with the golden-brown break. The tree which pro- 

 duces this is as delicate as the cacao is fine, and 

 there is some danger that this superb cacao may die 

 out a tragedy which every connoisseur would wish 

 to avert. 



The Gordian estimates that Venezuela sent out from 

 her three principal ports in 1919 some 16,226 tons of 

 cacao. 



