(58 niEPAiiATioN or CHOCOLATE. 



Caracas, amounts to four million eight hundred thousand 

 piastres. So important an object of commerce merits a 

 careful discussion ; and I flatter myself, that, from the great 

 number of materials 1 have collected on all the branches of 

 colonial agriculture, I shall be able to add something to the 

 information published by M. Depons, in his valuable work 

 on the provinces of Venezuela. 



The tree which produces the cacao is not at present found 

 wild in the forests of Terra Firma to the north of the 

 Orinoco ; we began to find it only beyond the cataracts of 

 Ature and Maypure. It abounds particularly near the 

 banks of the Ventuari, and on the Upper Orinoco, between 

 the Padamo and the Grehette. This scarcity of wild cacao- 

 trees in South America, north of the latitude of 6, is a very 

 curious phenomenon of botanical geography, and yet little 

 known. This phenomenon appears the more surprising, as, 

 according to the annual produce of the harvest, the number 

 of trees in full bearing in the cacao-plantations of Caracas, 

 Nueva Barcelona, Venezuela, Varinas, and Maracaybo, is 

 estimated at more than sixteen millions. The wild cacao- 

 tree has many branches, and is covered with a tufted and 

 dark foliage. It bears a very small fruit, like that variety 

 which the ancient Mexicans called tlalcacahuatl. Trans- 

 planted into the conucos of the Indians of Cassiquiare and 

 the Bio Negro, the wild tree preserves for several genera- 

 tions that force of vegetable life, which makes it bear fruit 

 in the fourth year ; while, in the province of Caracas, the 

 harvest begins only the sixth, seventh, or eighth year. It 

 is later in the inland parts than on the coasts and in the 

 valley of G-uapo. \Ve met with no tribe on the Orinoco 

 that prepared a beverage with the seeds of the cacao-tree. 

 The savages suck the pulp of the pod, and throw away the 

 seeds, which are often found in heaps where they have 

 passed the night. Though chorote, which is a very weak 

 infusion of cacao, is considered on the coast to be a very 

 ancient beverage, no historical fact proves that chocolate, 

 or any preparation whatever of cacao, was known to the 

 natives of Venezuela before the arrival of the Spaniards. 

 It appears to me more probable that the cacao-plantations of 

 Caracas were suggested by those of Mexico and Gruatimala ; 

 and that the Spaniards inhabiting Terra Eirma learned the 



