After resting awhile, we mounted again, and riding through a long gravelled walk, completely fenced in and arched over by magnificent mango trees, now literally golden with fruit, and through a vista of orange trees beyond, flanked by marañons, we entered the cacao plantation. It is difficult to describe these plantations; they more resemble beautiful parks of large trees, with broad walks running in every direction, all kept scrupulously neat and clean, than anything else in the United States with which they can be compared. The tree producing the fruit is known to botanists by the generic name of _Theobroma_, from the Greek, and signifying food for a god. It seldom rises higher than twenty feet; its leaves are large, oblong, and pointed, somewhat resembling those of the cherry tree, but infinitely larger; flowers small, and of a pale red color: they are surrounded by oval-pointed pods, grooved like a musk-melon, although much smaller; the nuts are very numerous, some pods containing as many as fifty; it produces two crops a-year, but is never without some pods on it. The trees are planted about fourteen feet apart, in a good soil. It is peculiarly necessary to defend this tree from the scorching rays of the sun, and at the same time sufficient warmth should be afforded for vegetation; this is done by shading it with the plantain tree and the Erythrina. As the cacao advances in size, the plantain is cut down, the Erythrina, or _coral tree_, or as it is sometimes called “_cacao madre_,” mother of the cacao, having attained sufficient height to protect it from the sun. It begins to bear at seven years old, and comes to perfection in about fifteen years. The coral tree grows to about the height of sixty feet, and entirely drops its leaves (in Nicaragua) about the end of March and beginning of April, and then becomes covered with flowers of a bright crimson, and shaped like a cimetar. At this season an extensive plain, covered with cacao plantations, is a magnificent object, when viewed from a height. The tops of the far-stretching forests of Erythrina then present the appearance of being clothed with flames. The cacao, it may be added, is indigenous to America, and became early an article of general consumption by the Spanish Americans, as it had been of the Indians from time immemorial. Subsequently to the Discovery it was introduced into the Canary and Phillipine islands by the Spaniards. It was called _tlalcacahuatl_ by the ancient Mexicans; amongst whom, as also among the natives of Central America, New Granada, and Peru, it was used as money, or a medium of exchange. It is still used as such in the markets of the cities of Granada and Leon. One hundred and fifty of the nuts were formerly valued at a dollar, which is, I believe, their present valuation. The cacao of Nicaragua is regarded as second to none, unless to that of Soconusco, which, during the Spanish dominion, was a monopoly of the crown. It is almost entirely