Fruits of Cuba. 243 
standing testimonial. In Mexico and parts of South 
America, the people could hardly live without their 
chocolate, or chocolatl, which is the Mexican word ; and 
it was calculated by Humboldt, in the year 1806, that 
twenty-three millions of pounds’ of the cacao were im- 
ported into Europe, the greater portion of which was 
used in Spain. Chocolate is nothing more than the 
cacao seeds bruised or ground into a paste, and sweet- 
ened and flavored áccording to the fancy of the manu- 
facturer and demarids of the consumer. 2 
Hos Etpe my account of the Fruits of Cuba. 1 
might have swelled it into more ample dimensions by . 
discoursing more fully concerning their properties and 
uses, medicinal and economical, real or supposed, but 
this might have proved tedious, and would only have 
been repeating. what has been published’ by Sir Hans 
Sloane, Jacquin, Jeffrys and others, and copied i into cy- ; 
clopedias and books of useful knowledge. 
Beside the fruits which I have described; died are a 
few others of inferior note, of which I can give no satis- 
factory account. ‘Two or three kinds of nuts were 
mentioned to me in Cuba, but I did not see them. Just 
before my departure, a fruit was brought to market, 
called by the French Cirouelle, but by the English by. 
the less euphonous name Hog-plum. It looked like a 
small, irregular, dark red apple; had a yellow flesh, 
which was juicy, and of a spirited, agreeable taste ; and 
in the centre a large rough stone or seed. It is, I be- 
lieve, a species of the genus Seowpras. Another fruit 
I saw, called by the French, Grosaille de la Chine, of 
