from that time most of the city betooke themselves to the
Cloister Churches, where by the Nuns and Fryers they were not
troubled....

"The Bishop fell dangerously sick. Physicians were sent for far
and neere, who all with a joynt opinion agreed that the Bishop
was poisoned. A gentlewoman, with whom I was well acquainted,
was commonly censured to have prescribed such a cup of
chocolatte to be ministered by the Page, which poisoned him who
so rigorously had forbidden chocolatte to be drunk in the
church. Myself heard this gentlewoman say that the women had no
reason to grieve for him, and that she judged, he being such an
enemy to chocolatte in the Church, that which he had drunk in
his house had not agreed with his body. And it became
afterwards a Proverbe in that country: 'Beware of the
chocolatte of Chiapa!' ... that poisoning and wicked city,
which truly deserves no better relation than what I have given
of the simple Dons and the chocolatte-confectioning Doñas."

It was only natural that the nuns and friars of the cloister churches
should raise no objection to this practice of chocolate drinking, for
we read further that two of these cloisters were "talked off far and
near, not for their religious practices, but for their skill in making
drinkes which are used in those parts, the one called chocolatte,
another atolle. Chocolatte is (also) made up in boxes, and sent not
only to Mexico, but much of it yearly transported to Spain."

[Illustration--Drawing: MODERN MEXICAN COCOA WHISK WITH LOOSE RINGS.
(_Brought home by the author._)]