of the rocou or arnatto as is sufficient to color it, together with ambergris or musk, to enforce (as he says) the flavor, but in reality to stimulate the system.  There is another chocolate made of filberts and almonds, but this is not considered genuine.  In old Spain it is somewhat differently made; two or three kinds of flowers, also the pods of Campeche, almonds, and hazel-nuts, being mixed up with it, while the paste is worked with orange-water.

With regard to the manner in which chocolate is prepared in England nothing need be said, as it is too well known to require description.  That which has appeared to me the best is “Fry’s Chocolate,” which requires only to be rubbed up with a little boiling water, and scalded milk added to it with sugar, according to the taste of the drinker; there is a flavour, however, in this chocolate sometimes of suet, which is probably added to give it a richness which the cacao employed may not possess of itself.  In the West Indies they rarely add anything to cacoa but arnatto (sometimes a little fresh butter), though it is often scented and sweetened, and sold in little rolls at five-pence and ten-pence each, currency.  It is always boiled with milk, which, though very indigestible when boiled and taken alone, seems to lose this quality when taken with chocolate.  Chocolate thus made is much drank, when cold, in the middle of the day, and is considered, both by the negroes and the old settlers, as a most nutritive and salutary beverage.

The signs by which good chocolate or cacao is known are these:—­It should dissolve entirely in water, and be without sediment; it should be oily, and yet melt in the mouth; and if genuine, and carefully prepared, should deposit no grits or grounds.  That made in the West Indies, and in some parts of Cuba, is dark; but that manufactured in Jamaica is of a bright brick colour, owing to the greater quantity of arnatto which is used in the preparation, and which, I think, gives it a richer and more agreeable flavor.

In an economical point of view, chocolate is a very important article of diet, as it may be literally termed meat and drink; and were our half-starved artisans, over-wrought factory children, and ricketty millinery girls, induced to drink it instead of the innutritious beverage called “tea,” its nutritive qualities would soon develop themselves in their improved looks and more robust constitution.  The price, too, is in its favour, cacao being eight-pence per pound; while the cheapest black tea, such as even the Chinese beggar would despise, drank by milliners, washerwomen, and the poorer class in the metropolis, is three shillings a pound, or three hundred and fifty per cent, dearer, while it is decidedly injurious to health.

The heads of the naval and military medical departments in England have been so impressed with the wholesomeness and superior nutriment of cocao, that they have judiciously directed that it shall be served out twice or thrice a week to regiments of the line, and daily to the seamen on board Her Majesty’s ships, and this wise regulation has evinced its salutary effects in the improved health and condition of the men.  Indeed, this has been most satisfactorily established in Jamaica among the troops; and the same may be asserted of the seamen in men of war on the coast.