Of the many varieties of the cacao, the best known are the criollo, forastero, and calabacilla. The criollo ("native") fruit is of average size, characterized by a "pinched" neck and a curving point. This is the best kind, though not the most productive; it is largely planted in Venezuela, Columbia and Ceylon, and produces a bean light in colour and delicate in flavour. The forastero ("foreign") pod is long and regular in shape, deeply furrowed, and generally of a rough surface. The calabacilla ("little calabash") is smooth and round, like the fruit after which it is named. All varieties are seen in bearing with red, yellow, purple, and sometimes green
pods, the colour not being necessarily an indication of ripeness.
Varieties of the Cacao.
On breaking open the pod, the beans are seen clinging in a cluster round a central fibre, the whole embedded in a white sticky pulp, through which the red skin of the cacao-bean shows a delicate pink. The pulp has the taste of acetic acid, refreshing in a hot climate, but soon dries if exposed to the sun and air. The pod or husk is of a porous, woody nature, from a quarter to half an inch thick, which, when thrown aside on warm moist soil, rots in a day or two.
Much has been written of life on a cocoa estate; and all who have enjoyed the proverbial hospitality of a West Indian or Ceylon planter, highly praise the conditions of their life. The description of an estate in the northern hills of Trinidad will serve as an example. The other industry of this island is sugar, in cultivating which the coloured labourers work in the broiling sun, as near to the steaming lagoon as they may in safety venture. Later on in the season the long rows between the stifling
canes have to be hoed; then, when the time of "crop" arrives, the huge mills in the usine are set in motion, and for the longest possible hours of daylight the workers are in the field, loading mule-cart or light railway with massive canes. In the yard around the crushing-mills the shouting drivers bring their mule-teams to the mouth of the hopper, and the canes are bundled into the crushing rollers with lightning speed. The mills run on into the night, and the hours of sleep are only those demanded by stern necessity, until the crop is safely reaped and the last load of canes reduced to shredded megass and dripping syrup.
But upon the cocoa estate there is lasting peace. From the railway on the plain we climb the long valley, our strong-boned mule or lithe Spanish horse taking the long slopes at a pleasant amble, standing to cool in the ford of the river we cross and re-cross, or plucking the young shoots of the graceful bamboos so often fringing our path. Villages and straggling cottages, with palm thatch and adobe walls, are
passed, orange or bread-fruit shading the little garden, and perhaps a mango towering over all. The proprietor is still at work on the plantation, but his wife is preparing the evening meal, while the children, almost naked, play in the sunshine.