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.  Both in Central America and in Orinoco there yet are many unpenetrated forests which are almost entirely composed of wild cacao-trees.  I believe the natives gather some of their fruit, but it is almost worthless.  By itself it has much less flavor than the cultivated kinds.  Certainly it is not picked and dried at the proper season, and it gets spoilt in its long transit through the damp woods.

[An uncertain venture.] Since the abolition of slavery, the crops in America have been diminishing year by year, and until a short time ago, when the French laid out several large plantations in Central America, were of but trifling value.  According to F. Engel, a flourishing cacao plantation required less outlay and trouble, and yields more profit than any other tropical plant; yet its harvests, which do not yield anything for the first five or six years, are very uncertain, owing to the numerous insects which attack the plants.  In short, cacao plantations are only suited to large capitalists, or to very small cultivators who grow the trees in their own gardens.  Moreover, as we have said, since the abolition of slavery most of the plantations have fallen into decay, for the freed slaves are entirely wanting in industry.

[Use in Europe.] The original chocolate was not generally relished in Europe.  When, however, at a later period, it was mixed with sugar, it met with more approbation.  The exaggerated praise of its admirers raised a bitter opposition amongst the opponents of the new drink; and the priests raised conscientious scruples against the use of so nourishing an article of food on fast days.  The quarrel lasted till the seventeenth century, by which time cacao had become an everyday necessity in Spain.  It was first introduced into Spain in 1520; but chocolate, on account of the monopoly of the Conquistadores, was for a long time secretly prepared on the other side of the ocean.  In 1580, however, it was in common use in Spain, though it was so entirely unknown in England that, in 1579, an English captain burnt a captured cargo of it as useless.  It reached Italy in 1606, and was introduced into France by Anne of Austria.  The first chocolate-house in London was opened in 1657, and in 1700 Germany at last followed suit. [81]

[Coffee.] The history of coffee in the Philippines is very similar to that of cacao.  The plant thrives wonderfully, and its berry has so strongly marked a flavor that the worst Manila coffee commands as high a price as the best Java.  In spite of this, however, the amount of coffee produced in the Philippines is very insignificant, and, until lately, scarcely deserved mention.  According to the report of an Englishman in 1828, the coffee-plant was almost unknown forty years before, and was represented only by a