258 CAMPS IN THE CARIBBEES. 
Though cacao grows in all the islands of the Carib- 
bean Sea, I found it most abundant in Grenada, where 
it shares with sugar exclusive cultivation, finding a 
soil and climate most suitable for its perfect growth. 
This plant was discovered’ in Mexico by the Span- 
iards, who invaded that country in 1519; we read, in 
the “ True History of the Conquest of Mexico,” by 
Captain Bernal Diaz, “one of the conquerors,” that 
fruit of all the kinds the country produced was laid 
before Montezuma; “he eat very little, but from time 
to time a liquor prepared from cocoa, and of a stimu- 
lative or corroborative quality, as we were told, was 
presented to him in golden cups. We could not at 
that time see if he drank it or not, but I observed a 
number of jars, above fifty, brought in filled with 
foaming chocolate.” 
Its adoption and introduction was rapid and now it 
flourishes nearly all over the tropical world, and in the 
Lesser Antilles and along the northern coast of South 
America it grows in perfection. 
Much confusion exists regarding the names of two 
totally distinct vegetable productions: the cocoa, the 
palm which bears the nut, and the cacao, from which 
chocolate is made — words so nearly alike that even 
great men have used them interchangeably, much 
to the bewilderment of the student of tropical flora. 
The cocoa palm is the Cocos nuczfera, and by some 
the generic name of cocos has been abbreviated into 
coco, which is the French and Spanish name also. 
Grand old Linnzeus gave to the cacao the beautiful 
name, 7heobroma — food for gods — and Theobroma 
cacao is the name by which it is known to botanists. 
Unlike the towering cocoa, with smooth shaft, 
