lO COCOA : ALL AIJOUT IT. 



lip their rests to grow wealthy therein, and fell to planting much of 

 it. which the Spanish slaves had always foretold would never 

 thrive, and so it happened; for though it promised fair, and throve 

 finely for five or six years, yet still, at that age when so long hopes 

 and cares had been wasted upon it, withered and died away by 

 some unaccountable cause, though they imputed it to a black 

 worm, or grub, which they found clinging to its roots." The 

 account continues : — "And did it not almost constantly die before, 

 would come into perfection in 15 years' growth, and last till 30, 

 thereby becoming the most profitable tree in the world, there 

 having been ^200 sterling made in one year of an acre of it. But 

 the old trees, being gone by age, and few new thriving, as the 

 Spanish negroes foretold, little or none now is produced worthy 

 the care and pains in planting and expecting it. Those slaves 

 gave a superstitious reason for its not thriving, many religious 

 rites being performed at its planting by the Spaniards which their 

 slaves were not permitted to see. But it is probable that where 

 a nation, as they, removed the art of making cochineal and curing 

 vanilloes into their island provinces, which were the commodities 

 of those islands in the Indians' time, and forbade the opening of 

 any mines in them for fear some maritime nation might be invited 

 to the conquering of them, so they might likewise in their 

 transplanting Cocoa from the Caracas and Guatemala, conceal 

 wilfully some secret in its planting from their slaves, lest it might 

 teach them to set up for themselves, by being able to produce a 

 commodity of such excellent use for the support of man's life, 

 with which alone and water some persons have been necessitated 

 to live ten weeks together without finding the least diminution 

 of health or strength." 



