WONDERS OF THE TROPICAL FORESTS, 
Cacao is chiefly used under the form of chocolate, Tb© 
beans are roasted, finely ground, so as to convert them into 
a perfectly smooth paste, and improved in flavour by the 
addition of spices, such as the sweet-scented vanillaj a short 
notice of which will not be out of place. 
Like our parasitical ivy, the Vanilla aromatica, a native 
of torrid America, climbs the summits of the highest 
forest-trees, or creeps along the moist rock crevices on 
the banks of rivulets. 
The stalk, which is about as thick as a finger, bears at 
each joint a lanceolate and ribbed leaf^ twelve inches long 
and three inches broad. The large flowers which fill the 
forest with their delicious odours are white intermixed 
with stripes of red and yellow, and are succeeded by long 
and slender pods containing many seeds imbedded in a 
thick oily and balsamic pulp. These pods seldom ripen 
in the wild state, for the dainty monkey knows no greater 
delicacy, and his agility in climbing almost always enables 
him to anticipate man. 
At present the vanilla is cultivated not only in Jlexico, 
but in Java, where the industrions Dutch have acclimatised 
it since 1819. It is planted under shady trees on a damp 
ground, and grows luxuriantly ; but as a thousand blossoms 
on an average produce bat one pod, it must always remain 
a rare and costly spice. 
Although but little known beyond the confines of its 
native country, Coca is beyond all doubt one of the most 
remarkable productions of the tropical zone. 
The sultry valleys on the eastern slopes of the Peruvian 
and Bolivian Andes are the seat of the Coca, which, like 
the coffee- tree, bears a lustrous green foliage, and white 
blossoms ripening into small scarlet ben-ies. The leaves, 
when brittle enongh to break on being bent, are stripped 
from the plant, dried in tlie sun, and closely packed in 
sacks. The naked shrub soon gets covered with new foliage, 
and after three or four months its leaves are ready for a 
second plucking, though in some of the higher mountain- 
