2 COCOA : ALL ABOUT IT. 



tributary streams of the Amazon flow, shadowed by trees 

 throwing to the water's edge and festooned by gigantic creepers 

 which hang in rich foliage and flower over them. 



We foHow these streams towards their sources among the 

 snow fields and rocky defiles of the Andes, amidst the ruins of an 

 ancient world and people, almost extinct as nations, but whose 

 history brings thrilling memories of by-gone days of civilization 

 and government. The country through which we pass was the 

 original home of the Cocoa plant, and it is found at the present 

 day growing there in all its pristine luxuriance. 



Its ancient history is embalmed in travellers' stories, com- 

 bining the real and the legendary, that is to say, the instructive 

 and entertaining. 



Mendoza^ in his " Collection and Interpretation of Hierogly- 

 phics," is thus quoted in " Aglio's Antiquities of Mexico :" " The 

 last king of the Tultecas, Ouetzalcohuatl, saw great prosperity 

 among his people. This king having drunk a beverage given to 

 him by a magician, Titlacahua, on the pretence that the king would 

 thereby be transported to a distant city, which he desired to see, 

 lost his self-possession, and began to weep bitterly, and was moved 

 to leave his country, 



" With the resolution which he had now formed, in conse- 

 quence of the art and incantations of the magicians, he caused 

 whatsov^er he possessed, made of silver and of shells, to be burned, 

 and buried, with other precious things, beneath mountains and 

 beds of rivers ; and as he was a magician, he changed the Cocoa 

 trees into others of a different kind called Mizquitl, and he 



