[Damage by storms.] The great obstacles in the way of large plantations are the heavy storms which recur almost regularly every year, and often destroy an entire plantation in a single day.  In 1856 a hurricane visited the Island just before the harvest, and completely tore up several large plantations by the roots; a catastrophe that naturally has caused much discouragement to the cultivators. [76] One consequence of this state of things was that the free importation of cacao was permitted, and people were enabled to purchase Guayaqual cacao at fifteen dollars per quintal while that grown at home cost double the money.

[Diseases and pests.] The plant is sometimes attacked by a disease, the origin of which is unknown, when it suffers severely from certain noxious insects. [77] It is also attacked by rats and other predatory vermin; the former sometimes falling upon it in such numbers that they destroy the entire harvest in a single night.  Travellers in America say that a well-kept cacao plantation is a very picturesque sight.  In the Philippines, however, or at any rate in East Luzon, the closely-packed, lifeless-looking, moss-covered trees present a dreary spectacle.  Their existence is a brief one.  Their oval leaves, sometimes nearly a foot long, droop singly from the twigs, and form no luxuriant masses of foliage.  Their blossoms are very insignificant; they are of a reddish-yellow, no larger than the flowers of the lime, and grow separately on long weedy stalks.  The fruit ripens in six months.  When it is matured, it is of either a red or a yellow tint, and is somewhat like a very rough gherkin.  Only two varieties appear to be cultivated in the Philippines. [78] The pulp of the fruit is white, tender, and of an agreeable acid taste, and contains from eighteen to twenty-four kernels, arranged in five rows.  These kernels are as large as almonds, and, like them, consist of a couple of husks and a small core.  This is the cacao bean; which, roasted and finely ground, produces cacao, and with the addition of sugar, and generally of spice, makes chocolate.  Till the last few years, every household in the Philippines made its own chocolate, of nothing but cacao and sugar.  The natives who eat chocolate often add roasted rice to it.  Nowadays there is a manufactory in Manila, which makes chocolate in the European way.  The inhabitants of the eastern provinces are very fond of adding roasted pili nuts to their chocolate. [79]

[Chocolate.] Europeans first learnt to make a drink from cacao in Mexico, where the preparation was called chocolatl. [80] Even so far back as the days of Cortes, who was a tremendous chocolate drinker, the cacao-tree was extensively cultivated.  The Aztecs used the beans as money; and Montezuma used to receive part of his tribute in this peculiar coin.  It was only the wealthy among the ancient Mexicans who ate pure cacao; the poor, on account of the value of the beans as coins, used to mix maize and mandioca meal