HISTORICAL 3 



defeated Montezuma, they found in his palaces great 

 quantities of the beans, which represented a great part 

 of his property and which were, of course, also drawn 

 upon to prepare the beverage, which was always kept 

 ready in golden beakers for his personal use. " He 

 used to take this strengthening drink," says Bernal 

 Dios de Castillo, "when he intended to visit his serail." 



As cocoa was so valuable, the common people could 

 only afford to mix a little of it as a spice in their 

 ordinary food, called " atolle," a sort of soup or 

 porridge made with corn-meal. The real beverage, 

 called " chocolatl," was only used by the rich. This 

 "chocolatl," however, was quite a different thing from 

 our cocoa or chocolate. It was made of corn and cocoa, 

 roughly ground between two stones and boiled with 

 addition of red pepper. At first the Spaniards could 

 not appreciate this mixture, and consequently did not 

 regard the plant as valuable ; and in the same way the 

 Dutch corsairs, when they had captured some of the 

 produce, threw it into the sea, calling it in bad Spanish 

 " cacura de carnero " (" sheep's excrement "). Accord- 

 ingly it was not until the end of the sixteenth century 

 that a small quantity was sent to Europe, and this only 

 as a curiosity. Soon after that time, however, the 

 Spaniards began to appreciate cocoa when they learned 

 to add sugar to it, and gradually they understood how 

 to make from it a drink pleasant to their taste by 

 mixing it with vanilla and cinnamon. This is said to 

 have been an invention of the nuns of the nunnery of 

 Guanaca. Prepared in this way cocoa soon became 

 popular among the Spaniards in America, and these 

 taught it to the people at home by importing to Spain 

 chocolate cakes, prepared with sugar, vanilla, and 

 cinnamon. 



As long as possible the Spaniards in America kept 

 the secret and the monopoly of the' manufacture of 

 these cakes in their own hands. It turned out, how- 

 ever, to be very difficult to prevent the export of 

 unprepared beans, and gradually the first European 



