Note 41 — Part II

33. The cacao is very abundant and cheap, and if it could find a market in other colonies and kingdoms the crop of it would be still greater, because the Indians would devote themselves to its cultivation.41 Entire groves of the coffee-tree could be planted, since it yields fruit everywhere; it is milder than that of Mage [i.e., Mocha?] and its fruit is gathered in the year when it is [first] planted, on account of the richness of the soil. Rice and wheat, if the natives applied themselves [to cultivating these], as they would do if they had a market for them, would be sold at good prices throughout China (where these grains are scarce), in Cochinchina, in Siam, in Camboja, in Pegu, and sometimes in the Malabar and Coromandel coasts. Wax—of which these mountains are full, and which is sold by the infidel Indians who inhabit them—has a great consumption here, and much of it is shipped to Nueva España; and if it were bartered for cloth, as was said above, it could be procured in greater quantity. Tobacco, oil, and sulphur are very abundant. Horses are valued in the said coasts, and, although there are many of them in these islands, there would be more if the ranchmen had a better sale for them; for at times they are accustomed to kill the horses, in order to dry their flesh and sell it. Carabaos and deer, whose flesh is likewise dried, yield some pesos. In fine, the following are recognized articles of merchandise in different places in China, Cochinchina, Camboja, and Siam: sugar, rice, cotton; indigo, dyes, sibucao (a sort of Brasil-wood), deer’s sinews, pepper, black tortoise-shell (called carey), nacre shells (or mother-of-pearl),42 birds’-nests, ebony; tapa (or dried meat), balate and camaron (both which are shellfish), and bonga; cables of cabo negro—all of which commodities these islands produce. [To these must be added] cochineal from Nueva España, fine cloths and camlets from España; lead (which also is produced by these islands, although it is not mined), and other articles, as stated above, of which better information will be given by practical merchants.