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CHAPTER XVI. 



CACAO AND VANILLA. 



Tlio Cacao Tree — Mode of preparing the Beans for the Market — Chocolate — 

 The Vanilla Plant. 



THEOBROMA, — food for gods, — the Greek name given by 

 Linnaeus to the cacao or chocolate tree, sufficiently proves 

 liow highly he valued the flavour of its seeds. 



Indigenous in Mexico, it had long been in extensive cultiva- 

 tion before the arrival of the Spaniards, who found the beverage 

 which the Indians prepared from its beans so agreeable, that 

 they reckoned it among the most pleasing fruits of their con- 

 ([uest, and lost no time in making their European friends ac- 

 quainted with its use. From Mexico they transplanted it into 

 their other dependencies, so that in America its present range 

 of cultivation extends from 20° N. lat. to Guayaquil and 

 Bahia. It has even been introduced into Africa and Asia, in 

 return for the many useful trees that have been imported from 

 the old into the new world. The cacao-tree seldom rises above 

 the height of twenty feet, its leaves are large, oblong, and pointed. 

 The flowers, which are of a pale red colour, spring from the 

 large branches, and even from the trunk and roots. " Never," 

 says the illustrious Humboldt, " shall I forget the deep impres- 

 sion made upon me by the luxuriance of tropical vegetation 

 on first seeing a cacao plantation. After a damp night, large 

 blossoms of the theobroma issue from the root at a considerable 

 distance from the trunk, emerging from the deep black mould. 

 A more striking example of the expansive powers of life could 

 hardly be met with in organic nature." The fruits are large, 

 oval, pointed pods, about five or six inches long, and containing 

 in five compartments from twenty to forty seeds — the well- 



