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At the end of the vista the bright sunlight shone on an open space, where appeared a small lake, on the opposite side of which we could distinguish several buildings raised on piles a large one in the centre with a deep verandah, the palm-thatched roof of which extended beyond the walls; the whole surrounded by plantations of mandioca, cacao, peach-palms, and other trees.
The ladies preferred the "creams"; they had cream of moka, of cacao, of mint, of vanilla. Marie Rouget drank one night so much anisette that she was sick. Margot and the other young ladies tapped the curaçao, the bénédictine, the trappistine, the chartreuse. As to the cassis, it was reserved for the little children.
The other towns, all of recent foundation, are Matanzas, a fishing village on the edge of a cacao district on the northeast coast, and three villages named after heroes of the War of Restoration: Cabrera on the coast at Tres Amarras point; Castillo, 8 miles west of Rivas; and Pimentel, formerly called Barbero, a station on the Samana-Santiago Railroad and the center of an important cacao zone.
The names of the cacao estates at the present day are nearly all Spanish or French, and throughout the British occupation of more than a hundred years the old families have in many cases held the same lands.
I went up and told him that I came from England, and never saw Cacao before, though I had been eating and drinking it all my life; at which news he grinned amusement till his white teeth and eyeballs made a light in that dark place, and offered me a fresh broken pod, that I might taste the pink sour- sweet pulp in which the rows of nibs lie packed, a pulp which I found very pleasant and refreshing.
Some seven miles before reaching the mouth of the Gran Estero there is a little town called Matanzas, a kind of headquarters for turtle fishermen and which, though the entrance to its bay is almost closed by a sand bank, is often visited by coasting schooners that call for cacao from nearby plantations.
By its unlikeness to our native combinations of sounds, it makes one think of the West Indies or South America, as do caoutchouc and cacao. Does the word as a matter of fact come from the American Indians? Did we receive, together with the vegetable, the name by which it is known in its native country? Perhaps; but how are we to know?
Such duties are imposed on cacao and a number of other articles, but not on sugar or tobacco. The tax is not a large one, but the imposition of any export tax is deplored.
This was a clearing in flat and rather swampy forest, about twenty acres in extent, and mostly planted with cacao and tobacco.
The pulp of the fruit is white, tender, and of an agreeable acid taste, and contains from eighteen to twenty-four kernels, arranged in five rows. These kernels are as large as almonds, and, like them, consist of a couple of husks and a small core. This is the cacao bean; which, roasted and finely ground, produces cacao, and with the addition of sugar, and generally of spice, makes chocolate.
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