OUTLINE OF ITS EARLY HISTORY. II 



little fire, after the confection is made ; but if more fire be put under 

 than will only warm it, then the unctuous part will dry away. The 

 Achiotte also must be put in in the beating, that it may the better take the 

 colour. All the ingredients must be searced, save only the cacao, and 

 if from the cacao the dry shell be taken, it will be the better. When 

 it is well beaten and incorporated (which will be known by the short- 

 nesse of it), then with a spoon (so in the Indias is used) is taken up 

 some of the paste, which will be almost liquid, and made into tablets, 

 or else without a spoon put into boxes, and when it is cold it will be 

 hard. . 



"Those that make it into tablets put a spoonful of the paste upon a 

 piece of paper (the Indians put it upon the leaf of a plaintin tree), where, 

 being put into the shade (for in the sun it melts and dissolves), it grows 

 hard ; and then bowing the paper or leaf, the tablet fals off by reason 

 of the fatnesse of the paste. But if it be put into anything of earth or 

 wood, it stickes fast, and will not come off but with scraping or break- 

 ing. The manner of drinking it is diverse ; the one (being the way 

 most used in Mexico) is to take it hot with Atolle, dissolving a tablet in 

 hot water, and stirring and beating it in the cup, when it is to be drunk, 

 with a Molinet, and when it is well stirred to a scumme, or froth, then 

 to fill the cup with hot Atolle, and so drink it sup by sup. Another way 

 is that the chocolate, being dissolved with cold water and stirred with 

 the Molinet, and the scumme being taken off and put into another 

 vessel, the remainder be set upon the fire, with as much sugar as will 

 sweeten it, and when it is warme, then to powre it upon the scumme 

 which was taken off before, and so to drink it. But the most ordinary 

 way is to warme the water very hot, and then to powre out half the cup 

 full that you mean to drink ; and to put into it a tablet or two, or as 

 much as will thicken reasonably the water, and then grinde it well with 

 the Molinet, and when it is well ground and risen to a scumme, to fill 

 the cup with hot water, and so drink it by sups (having sweetened it 

 with sugar), and to eat it with a little conserve or maple bred, steeped 

 into the chocolatte. 



" Besides these ways there is another way (which is much used in the 

 Island of Santo Domingo), which is to put the chocolatte into a pipkin 

 with a little water, and to let it boyle well till it be dissolved, and then 



