36 COCOA 



introduced into that particular district by the Indians, 

 or by early Spanish colonists. 



Beyond all dispute, it is to the aboriginal Indians 

 of South America to mere savages, as we are 

 pleased to call them that the whole civilized world 

 owes the discovery of cocoa. They singled out the 

 tree from the multitudinous variety of trees in the 

 tangled maze of primeval forests; they ran the risk 

 of sampling the fruit, which might have been poisonous ; 

 they had the good taste to regard the fruit as a delicacy, 

 the brains to make from the beans a beverage fit to 

 serve at royal feasts, the common sense and enterprise 

 to multiply supplies of the raw product by cultivating 

 the tree that had proved such a find of finds in their 

 forest homeland of hidden treasures. 



The civilized Spaniard not only first saw cocoa 

 trees in the land of the South American Indians and 

 saw them under cultivation, too, but he learned from 

 the savages there what good fare could be prepared 

 from cocoa beans; it must have been a pleasant ex- 

 perience, judging from the accounts that have been 

 handed down of the chocolate " froth " that was 

 served in golden goblets at Montezuma's feasts. 

 Unfortunately, the recipe of that delectable prepara- 

 tion has not been handed down. Have you read 

 Prescott's histories of the Conquest of Mexico and 

 the Conquest of Peru ? If not, make an early oppor- 

 tunity of doing so after we get home from our travels 

 together they are more exciting than any adventure 

 story that has ever been invented, and they teem with 

 fascinating descriptions and stories of the homeland 

 of cocoa, the lands in which the tree was first cultivated, 

 and the people who first made beverages and sweet- 

 meats from cocoa beans. 



