throw away the seeds, which are often found in heaps where they have passed the night. Down to the sixteenth century, travellers differ widely in their opinions respecting chocolate. Benzoni, in his History of the New World, published in 1572, styles it a drink fitter for hogs than for men; and the Jesuit Acosta, speaking of the excessive fondness of the Spanish Americans for chocolate, says, that one must be accustomed to that black beverage, not to be sick at the mere sight of its froth, which swims on it like yeast on a fermented liquor. "The cacao," he adds, "is a prejudice (una supersticion) of the Mexicans, as the coca is of the Peruvians." Cortes praises it as an agreeable and nutritious drink. "He who has drunk one cup," says the page of the great Conquistador, " can travel a whole day without any other food, especially in very hot climates, for chocolate is by its nature cold and refreshing." The Mexicans, it seems, prepared the infusion cold, mixing with it a little maize-flour, some vanilla, and a spice called mecaxochitl. The Spaniards introduced the custom of preparing it by boiling water with the paste; but they have a strong dislike to the mixture of vanilla with the chocolate, deeming it unwholesome. Humboldt bears testimony to the salutary properties of the beverage. "Alike easy to convey and to employ as an aliment," he says, "it contains a large quantity of nutritive and stimulating particles in a small compass. It has been said with truth, that in Africa, rice, gum, and shea-butter, assist man in crossing the deserts. In the New World, chocolate and maize-flour have rendered accessible to him the table-land of the Andes and vast uninhabitable forests." The cacao harvest is

very variable

and precarious. The plant is extremely delicate, liable to be injured by sudden changes in the temperature, though only of a few degrees, or by irregular showers, and exposed to various animal and insect depredators. The new planter may have to wait eight

or ten years for the fruit of his labours, for the plantations do not begin to yield till the sixth, seventh, or eighth year, and they cease to be productive after forty years. But on the other hand, the plantations require a much smaller proportion of labour than most others. One slave is sufficient for a thousand trees, which may yield, on an average, twelve fanegas of cacao, worth from twenty-five to forty-five piast ers the fanega (about a cwt.). The crops are gathered twice a year, at the end of June and December. They vary much, yet less than the produce of the olive and the vine in Europe. The provinces of Venezuela are supposed by Humboldt to furnish nearly two-thirds of the chocolate that is consumed in the western and southern parts of Europe. The annual produce, from 1800 to 1806, of the whole captaingeneralship, is believed to have amounted to very nearly 200,000 fanegas, of which 145,000 found their way to Europe, while 60,000 were annually exported from Guayaquil. The total value of the exports of cacao is estimated by Humboldt at nearly 2,000,000 sterling.*

Before we take leave of the provinces of Venezuela, we must not forget to mention a very remarkable vegetable production that is indigenous to the cordillera of the coast, particularly from Barbula to Maracaybo, called the palo de vaca, or cow-tree, and (at Caucagua) the arbol de leche, or milk-tree. It belongs, apparently, to the genus sapota. As all the milky juices of plants are acrid, bitter, and more or less poisonous, it was not without some incredulity that Humboldt heard of the extraordinary virtues of

*Humboldt, Pers. Narr. vol. iii. p. 192; vol. iv. pp. 231 -42; Pol. Essay, vol. iii. pp. 23--6. The learned Writer gives, as the result of a great number of local statements, the computation, that Europe at present consumes annually, of chocolate, 23,000,000 of pounds weight; of tea, 32,000,000; of coffee, 140,000,000; of sugar, 450,000.

this tree; but he found that they were not exaggerated. "On the barren flank of a rock," he says, 66 grows a tree with dry and leather-like leaves; its large woody roots can scarcely penetrate into the stony soil. For several months of the year, not a single shower moistens its foliage. Its branches appear dead and dried; yet, when the trunk is pierced, their flows from it a sweet and nourishing milk. It is at sunrise that this vegetable fountain is most abundant. The blacks and the natives are then to be seen hastening from all quarters, furnished with large bowls to receive the milk, which grows yellow and thickens at its surface. Some empty their bowls under the tree, while others carry home the juice for their children. This fine tree rises like the broad-leaved star-apple. Its oblong and pointed leaves, tough and alternate, are marked by lateral ribs: some of them are ten inches long. We did not see the flower. The fruit is somewhat fleshy, and contains a nut, sometimes two. The milk obtained by incisions made in the trunk, is glutinous, tolerably thick, free from all acrimony, and of an agreeable and balmy smell. It was offered to us in the shell of the tutumo or calabash-tree. We drank a considerable quantity of it in the evening before we went to bed, and very early in the morning, without experiencing the slightest injurious effect. The viscosity of this milk alone renders it somewhat disagreeable. The negroes and free-labourers drink it, dipping into it their maize or cassava-bread. The major-domo of the farm (at Barbula) told us that the negroes grow perceptibly fatter during the season when the palo de vaca furnishes the most milk. This juice exposed to the air, presents, on its surface, a membranous and strongly animalised substance, yellowish, stringy, and resem bling cheese, which when separated from the aqueous liquid, is elastic, almost like India rubber, but under20

VOL. I.

goes, after some time, the same phenomena of putrefaction as gelatine. The people call the coagulum that separates on contact with the air, cheese: this coagulum grows sour in five or six days."* The viscosity observed in the fresh milk is, no doubt, adds the learned Writer, occasioned by the caoutchouc, which is not yet separated, and which forms one mass with the albumen and caseum, as the butter and caseum do in animal milk. The caoutchouc, or oily part, may therefore be considered as the butter of this vegetable milk; and in this combination of the albuminous and oily principles, it bears the closest analogy to the milk of mammiferous animals. The butter-tree of Bambarra, mentioned by Mungo Park, is suspected to be of the same genus as the palo de vaca.t It remains for future travellers to pursue the inquiry respecting the genus and habits of this remarkable natural production, and to ascertain how far it will admit of being extended by cultivation.

We must now for the present part company with this indefatigable and truly philosophical Traveller, in order to explore the western provinces of Colombia, and penetrate the recesses of the Andes.

FROM VALENCIA TO BOGOTA.

The anonymous Author of the Letters from Colombia is the only modern traveller who had made the public acquainted with the route from Caracas to Bogota. This journey, a distance, according to the computation of the country, of 1,200 miles, he performed in two months, without experiencing any sensible fatigue or other inconvenience. Disclaiming all literary or scientific pretensions, he has given an

*Caseum, the basis of cheese, has been recently detected in the emulsion of almonds.

+ Humboldt, Pers. Narr. vol. iv. pp. 212-226.

unadorned, but distinct and interesting account of his journey.

He left Caracas on the 22d of February, 1823. On the 25th he reached Valencia, distant from Caracas thirty leagues and a half. Here he obtained three additional saddle-mules, and on the 27th, the party, who formed a small cavalcade, set out for the capital. An almost suffocating ride of three leagues across a savanna, brought them to Tocuyito, a pretty village in the midst of haciendas. Along this road, the Spaniards had a little before been pursued with considerable slaughter, after their signal defeat at Carabobo. By the road side, and scattered over the plain, were still to be seen the remains of the unfortunate Godos (Goths, so the Spaniards were called by the Patriots) who were killed in the retreat. The road beyond Carabobo becomes very precipitous, either winding along the side of mountains, or descending into deep dells, the beds of mountain rivulets. At six leagues from Tocuyito, is a solitary hovel called El Hayo, where the wearied party halted for the night. The animals being fastened to a cane fence, the hostess, a "half-starved Indian woman," made a fire, and prepared the chocolate which the Travellers had brought with them, ("a great resource, by the by," says the Writer, "in this land of bad living,") which was served up in calabashes: they then slung their hammocks in the small room which served for a kitchen, and slept as they could. From this place, it is a distance of four leagues, along good roads, to Tinaquilla, and six leagues and a half further to Tinaco, another large village, which the Travellers reached in the evening. In this day's journey, the Writer's admiration was excited by the various and beautiful plumage of the birds, "the commonest of which would be considered as curiosities in Europe." Parrots and paroquets were seen in large flocks; also, the mocking-bird, the macaw, the scarlet cardinal,