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Updated: June 12, 2025
It was surrounded by a clearing of about a hundred acres in extent; planted with cacao trees, pepper, and many kinds of vegetables. "This is delightful!" Harry said, as they sat in front of the hut that had been cleared for them, and looked over the plain. "It must be twenty degrees cooler, here, than it was at Prome.
It was only the wealthy among the ancient Mexicans who ate pure cacao; the poor, on account of the value of the beans as coins, used to mix maize and mandioca meal with them. Even in our own day the inhabitants of Central America make use of the beans as small coins, as they have no copper money, nor smaller silver coins than the half-real.
And hence comes no small profit to the priests; for on such saints' days the owner of the saint makes a great feast in the town, and presents the priest sometimes two or three, sometimes four or five crowns for his mass and sermon, besides a turkey and three or four fowls, with as much cacao as will make him chocolate for all the octave or eight days following.
All the provision he would accept was a little maize, and sufficient cacao to replenish his pouch. The cacao has been in use among the Peruvians from the earliest times. Its peculiar qualities enable those who take it to undergo great and continuous exertion, without any other food. It is a plant somewhat like the vine, and grows to about seven or eight feet in height.
This region, excellently adapted for cacao raising and sugar planting, has been kept secluded by bad roads. After several thousand dollars had been spent in surveys and a little grading, the work was stopped by lack of funds and the government decided that the expense of construction and the undeveloped character of the country counselled an abandonment of the project for the moment.
The name of "Soconosco" cocoa is still a guarantee of excellent quality. This district in Guatemala was in bygone days so noted for its cacao that the whole crop was monopolized for the use of the Spanish Court. In Central America, as in other countries, the Spaniards gathered more solid riches from the cacao than from the gold mines they hoped to discover.
Now we left the Cacao grove: and I was aware, on each side of the trace, of a wall of green, such as I had never seen before on earth, not even in my dreams; strange colossal shapes towering up, a hundred feet and more in height, which, alas! it was impossible to reach; for on either side of the trace were fifty yards of half- cleared ground, fallen logs, withes, huge stumps ten feet high, charred and crumbling; and among them and over them a wilderness of creepers and shrubs, and all the luxuriant young growth of the 'rastrajo, which springs up at once whenever the primeval forest is cleared all utterly impassable.
The wild cacao grows in the forests of the Atlantic slope, and when cultivated it still requires shade to thrive luxuriantly. This is provided at first by plantain trees, afterwards by the coral tree, a species of Erythrina, called by the natives Cacao madre, or the Cacao's mother, on account of the fostering shade it affords the cacao tree.
The ease with which cacao is planted and the profits to be derived from it often cause the small farmers to neglect everything else for cacao and purchase articles of food which they could themselves raise. The consequence is that when the cacao crop fails, there is widespread want and discontent. Cacao has been exported since 1888, before which time it was grown for local consumption only.
The cacao it was agreed should be taken to Tortuga to be sold. Then it was the turn of Levasseur, and black grew the brow of Captain Blood as the Frenchman's tale was unfolded. At the end he roundly expressed his disapproval.
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