[76] In 1727 a hurricane destroyed at a single blast the important cacao plantation of Martinique, which had been created by long years of extraordinary care.  The same thing happened at Trinidad.—­Mitscherlich.

[77] F. Engel mentions a disease (mancha) which attacks the tree in America, beginning by destroying its roots.  The tree soon dies, and the disease spreads so rapidly that whole groves of cacao-trees utterly perish and are turned into pastures for cattle.  Even in the most favored localities, after a long season of prosperity, thousands of trees are destroyed in a single night by this disease, just as the harvest is about to take place.  An almost equally dangerous foe to cultivation is a moth whose larva entirely destroys the ripe cacao beans; and which only cold and wind will kill.  Humboldt mentions that cacao beans which have been transported over the chilly passes of the Cordilleras are never attacked by this pest.

[78] G. Bornoulli quotes altogether eighteen kinds; of which he mentions only one as generally in use in the Philippines.

[79] Pili is very common in South Luzon, Samar, and Leyte; it is to be found in almost every village.  Its fruit, which is almost of the size of an ordinary plum but not so round, contains a hard stone, the raw kernel of which is steeped in syrup and candied in the same manner as the kernel of the sweet pine, which it resembles in flavor.  The large trees with fruit on them, “about the size of almonds and looking like sweet-pine kernels,” which Pigafetta saw at Jomonjol were doubtless pili-trees.  An oil is expressed from the kernels much resembling sweet almond oil.  If incisions are made in the stems of the trees, an abundant pleasant-smelling white resin flows from them, which is largely used in the Philippines to calk ships with.  It also has a great reputation as an anti-rheumatic plaster.  It is twenty years since it was first exported to Europe; and the first consignees made large profits, as the resin, which was worth scarcely anything in the Philippines, became very popular and was much sought in Europe.

[80] The general name for the beverage was Cacahoa-atl (cacao water).  Chocolatl was the term given to a particular kind.  F. Hernandez found four kinds of cacao in use among the Axtecs, and he describes four varieties of drinks that were prepared from them.  The third was called chocolatl, and apparently was prepared as follows:—­Equal quantities of the kernels of the pochotl (Bombaz ceiba) and cacahoatl (cacao) trees were finely ground, and heated in an earthen vessel, and all the grease removed as it rose to the surface.  Maize, crushed and soaked, was added to it, and a beverage prepared from the mixture; to which the oily parts that had been skimmed off the top were restored, and the whole was drunk hot.

[81] Berthold Seemann speaks of a tree with finger-shaped leaves and small round berries, which the Indians sometimes offered for sale.  They made chocolate from them, which in flavor much surpassed that usually made from cacao.