Personal Narrative Of Travels To The Equinoctial Regions Of America During The Years 1799-1804 - Volume 2 - By Alexander Von Humboldt And Aime Bonpland.
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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.
Transplanted into the conucos
of the Indians of Cassiquiare and the Rio Negro, the wild tree
preserves for several generations 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 weak
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
Guatimala; and that the Spaniards inhabiting Terra Firma learned the
cultivation of the cacao-tree, sheltered in its youth by the foliage
of the erythrina and plantain;* (This process of the Mexican
cultivators, practised on the coast of Caracas, is described in the
memoirs known under the title of "Relazione di certo Gentiluomo del
Signor Cortez, Conquistadore del Messico." (Ramusio, tome 2 page
134).) the fabrication of cakes of chocolatl, and the use of the
liquid of the same name, in course of their communications with
Mexico, Guatimala, and Nicaragua.
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