The Home of the Cacao.
(One of Messrs. Cadburys' Estates, Maracas, Trinidad.)
The cacao-trees of neighbouring planters come right down to the ditch by the roadside, and beneath dense foliage, on the long rows of stems hang the bright glowing pods. Above all towers the bois immortelle, called by the Spaniards la madre del cacao, "the mother of the cacao." In January or February the immortelle sheds its leaves and bursts into a crown of flame-coloured blossom. As we reach the shoulder of the hill, and look down on the cacao-filled hollow, with the immortelle above all, it is a sea of golden glory, an indescribably beautiful scene. Now we note at the roadside a plant of dragon's blood, and if we peer among the trees there is another just within sight; this, therefore, is the boundary of two estates. At an opening in the trees a boy slides aside the long bamboos which form the gateway, and a short canter along
a grass track brings us to the open savanna or pasture around the homestead.
Here are grazing donkeys, mules, and cattle, while the chickens run under the shrubs for shelter, reminding one of home. The house is surrounded with crotons and other brilliant plants, beyond which is a rose garden, the special pride of the planter's wife. If the sun has gone down behind the western hills, the boys will come out and play cricket in the hour before sunset. These savannas are the beauty-spots of a country clothed in woodland from sea-shore to mountain-top.
Ortinola, Maracas, Trinidad.
Next morning we are awaked by a blast from a conch-shell. It is 6.30, and the mist still clings in the valley; the sun will not be over the hills for another hour or more, so in the cool we join the labourers on the mule-track to the higher land, and for a mile or more follow a stream into the heart of the estate. If it is crop-time, the men will carry a goulet—a hand of steel, mounted on a long bamboo—by the sharp edges of which the pods are cut from the higher branches without