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“...9* GUIDE TO THE WEST INDIES
encomium in these pages. The average annual
export of rum from Jamaica is 1,300,000 gallons j
from the other West Indian islands, 200,000 gallons,
and from British Guiana, 2,500,000 gallons.
todust^a The SPaniards were not only responsible for
introducing sugar into the West Indies, but also
I cocoa. The original home of this plant was pro-
I bably in South America, and it is even now found
in its wild state on the banks of the upper Amazon
and in the interior of Ecuador. The Spaniards
left behind them well-established cocoa plantations
—or cocoa walks, as they were then called—in
Jamaica, and the cultivation of the plant spread
rapidly to the other islands. At the present time
the cocoa industry has reached such dimensions
in Trinidad that it is more important in that island
than sugar, while in Grenada and Dominica it has
ousted sugar almost entirely, only sufficient of the
latter commodity being grown there to meet local
requirements. In Jamaica, St. Lucia...”
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