Page:Narrative of an Official Visit to Guatemala.djvu/226

206 as brilliant a polish as the finest rose-wood.

Granada now only contains about 1000 houses, one half of what it did a century ago: it is indifferently fortified. The exports are jugged beef, hides and tallow, to the Havannah; also some pearls, tortoise-shells and Nicaragua wood, to Jamaica: it raises cocoa sufficient for its own consumption, but does not export any, being only of third rate quality, and selling for from twenty-three to twenty-seven dollars the bale or tercio of 130 pounds Spanish. Of the different classes of cocoa, that of San Antonio is the best, Soconusco the second, and Granada the third. From 2000 to 2,500 quintals of Guayaquil cocoa are consumed in the five states of Guatemala, though the plant was taken from the latter country. The cocoa of Soconusco, about a century and a half ago, was carried from thence to Vera Cruz on Indians' backs, exclusively for the king, who used to make presents of it to foreign courts. In the