The beans, being freed from all spoiled and mouldy portions, are to be gently roasted over a fire in an iron cylinder, with holes in its ends for allowing the vapors to escape, the apparatus being similar to a coffee-roaster.  When the aroma begins to be well developed, the roasting is known to be finished, and the beans must be turned out, cooled, and freed by fanning and sifting from their husks.  The kernels are then to be converted into a paste, either by trituration in a mortar heated to 130 degrees Fahr., or by a powerful mill.[1] The cacao tree resembles our dwarf apple tree both in body and branches, but the leaf, which is of a dark green, is considerably broader and larger.  The nuts are of the color and about the size of an almond, and hang eighteen to thirty together by a slender stringy film, enclosed in a pod.  A ripe pod is of a beautiful yellow, intermixed with crimson streaks; when dried, it shrivels up and changes to a deep brown; the juice squeezed from the mucilaginous pulp contained in the husks of these nuts appears like cream, and has a very grateful taste of a cordial quality.  The nuts have a light pleasant smell, and an unctuous, bitterish, roughish (not ungrateful) taste.  Those of Nicaragua and Caracas are the most agreeable and are the largest; those of the French Antilles, and our own West India islands, are the most unctuous.

The Mexicans, in preparing the chocolate paste, add some long pepper, a little annatto, and lastly vanilla; some add cinnamon, cloves and anise, and those who love perfumes, musk and ambergris.

The finest American cacao is said to be that of Soconusco, but the principal imports are from Caracas and Guayaquil, which is of a very good quality.  The province of Barcelona, adjoining Caracas exports annually from 200,000 to 300,000 cwt.

The very large shipments from Guayaquil are shown by the following return.  Of this quantity Spain takes the largest portion, Mexico the next, and England receives but a very small quantity.

Cacao exported from Guayaquil:—­

lbs.
1833             6,605,786
1834            10,999,853
1835            13,800,851
1836            10,918,565
1837             8,520,121
1838             7,199,057
1839            12,169,787
1840            14,266,942

The exports of cacao from the port of La Guayra, has been as follows in the years ending December 31.

Fanegas.
1850            40,181
1851            47,951
1852            54,083

Five fanegas are equal to one English quarter.  The price of cacao was, at the close of 1852, sixteen dollars the fanega.

The province of Caracas, according to Humboldt, at the end of the last century, produced annually 150,000 fanegas of cacao, of which two-thirds were exported to Spain, and the remainder locally consumed.  The shipments from the port of La Guayra alone averaged 80,000 to 100,000, or nearly double the present shipments.  In the early part of the present century the captain-generalship of Caracas produced nearly 200,000 fanegas, of which about 145,000 were sent direct to Europe.  The province of Caracas then produced 150,000 fanegas; Maracaibo, 20,000; Cumana, 18,000, and New Barcelona, 5,000.