24 SIX MONTHS IN MEXICO. 



to be regretted that it is not commonly pro- 

 duced in Mexico, where it is so much an ar- 

 ticle of consumption. Chocolate may be pro- 

 cured on a journey, when scarcely any thing 

 else can be had ; and is of superior flavour and 

 more easy of digestion than any I ever met 

 with elsewhere. In the capital great numbers 

 of females are employed in making it ; which 

 they do by grinding it by hand, between 

 stones, in the same manner as the tortilios or 

 maize cakes are made, and a laborious process 

 it is. It is singular that the cultivation of the 

 cocoa nut was, in the time of Montezuma, 

 .very general in Mexico, as several cities paid 

 tribute in that produce, and the fruit passed 

 current as the coin of the kingdom. 



The well known drug of the apothecaries' 

 shops, jalap (the convolvolus jalapa), is the 

 produce of the temperate region, principally 

 in the neighbourhood of Xalapa ; and hence 

 its appellation, for the J and the X in the 



