58 
PREPARATION OF CHOCOLATE. 
Caracas, amounts to four million eight hundred thousand 
piastres. So important an object of commerce merits a 
careful discussion ; and I llattcr myself, that, from the great 
number of materials 1 hare collected on all the branches of. 
colonial agriculture, I shall be able to add something to the 
information published by M. Depons, in his valuable work 
on the provinces of Yenezuela. 
The tree which produces the cacao is not at present fotmd 
wild in the forests of Terra Firma to the north of the 
Orinoco ; we began to find it only beyond the cataracts of 
Ature and JMaypure. It abounds particularly near the 
banks of the Ventuari, and on the Upper Orinoco, between 
the Padamo and the G-ehette. This scarcity of wild cacao- 
trees in South America, north of the latitude of 6°, is a very 
curious phenomenon of botanical geography, and yet little 
known. This phenomenon appears the more surprising, as, 
according to the annual produce of the harvest, the number 
of trees in full bearing in the cacao-plantations of Caracas, 
Nueva Barcelona, Yenezuela, Varinas, and Maracaybo, is 
estimated at more than sixteen millions. The wild cacao- 
tree has many branches, and is covered with a tufted and 
dark foliage. It bears a very small fruit, like that variety 
which the ancient Mexicans called tlalcacahuatl. Trans- 
planted into the conucos of the Indians of Cassiquiare and 
the Rio ]N T egro, the wild tree preserves for several genera- 
tions that force of vegetable life, which makes it bear fruit 
in the fourth year ; while, in the province of Caracas, the 
harvest begins only the sixth, seventh, or eighth year. It 
is later in the inland parts than on the coasts and in the 
valley of Guapo. We met with no tribe on the Orinoco 
that prepared a beverage with the seeds of the cacao-tree. 
The savages suck the pulp of the pod, and throw away the 
seeds, which are often found in heaps where they have 
passed the night. Though chorote, which is a very w eak 
infusion of cacao, is considered on the coast to be' a very 
ancient beverage, no historical fact proves that chocolate, 
or any preparation whatever of cacao, was known to the 
natives of Venezuela before the arrival of the Spaniards. 
It appears to me more probable that the cacao-plantations of 
Caracas were suggested by those of Mexico and G uatimaia ; 
and that the Spaniards inhabiting Terra Firma learned the 
