nt America long before its
discovery by Columbus, and the latter carried the first knowledge of it
to Europe. By the middle of the seventeenth century it was much used in
Spain, and less than a hundred years later it had become the fashionable
drink of western Europe.

The cacao-tree, originally native to Mexico, is now cultivated
throughout tropical America and the West Indies. It is not cultivated to
any extent in the Eastern continent. The fruit consists of large, fleshy
pods, which are cut from the trees usually in June and December. The
seeds are then piled in heaps, or else packed in pits, and allowed to
undergo a rapid fermentation for a period of several days, to which
process their flavor is mainly due. The roasted and broken seeds are the
cocoa-nibs of commerce. The husks are known as cocoa-shells.

A very large part of the cacao product comes from Ecuador, Guayaquil
being perhaps the chief market of the world. The Venezuelan and
Brazilian products, however, are the choicest; these are known in
commerce respectively as Caracas and Trinidad cacao. Spain, Portugal,
and France are the chief purchasers, and in the first-named country the
consumption per person is five or six times as great as in other
countries.

Cacao is not only a stimulant beverage, but a food as well; about
one-half its weight is fat, and about one-third consists of starch and
flesh-making substances. The stimulant principle is the same as that
occurring in tea and coffee, but the proportion is considerably less. In
preparing the cocoa for the market, much of the fat is intentionally
withdrawn. The fat, commercially known as "cocoa-butter," and "oil of
theobroma," does not turn rancid.

Chocolate consists of cocoa ground to a paste with sugar and flavoring
matter, and then cast in moulds to harden. It is used mainly in the
manufacture of confectionery. Most of the chocolate is made in France,
Spain, and the United States. More than forty million pounds of cocoa
are yearly consumed in the United States.

=Mate.=--Mate, yerba mate, or Paraguay tea, is the leaf of a shrub, a
species of holly, growing profusely in the forests of Brazil, Paraguay,
Argentina, and Uruguay. In many instances, the shrub is cultivated. The
leaves are prepared in much the same manner as tea-leaves are, but
instead of being rolled, they are broken by beating.

The mate of commerce has a stimulant principle identical with that of
tea and coffee, which is the only re