The gardens are a special feature, and before the houses are let, they are laid out by the Trust, and planted with fruit trees. All are well worked, and an average yield in vegetables and fruit of nearly two shillings a week has been found possible, equivalent to something like £60 an acre—more than twelve times as much food as would be produced if under pasturage. Two professional gardeners, with several men under them, are employed to look after the gardening department, and they are always ready to give any information or advice required by the tenants, so that the cottage gardens may be cultivated to the utmost profit. At present the public buildings consist of a village inn and baths; a school is shortly to be erected. Building is being steadily proceeded with, and although the development of the estate may be somewhat slow at first, it will advance with growing rapidity as the revenue increases. No wonder that there is an omnipresent air of comfort and prosperity, or that the death-rate is only about eight per thousand, in comparison with nineteen in the neighbouring city.
No description of Bournville would be complete without a mention of its picturesque alms-houses. Here a haven of rest is provided for some of those who, in their best years, have rendered faithful service to the firm. Thirty-three independent houses, brick and stone built, each with its own doorway to the quiet greensward, and its windows to the sun, form an inviting, reposeful quadrangle. They were the last gift of a life devoted to the interests of others, and the happiness and peace which characterize them are fitting memorials of the late Richard Cadbury, the elder of the two brothers who founded this great industry, and who have in their lives been favoured to see such untold blessing upon their labours.
SECTION OF A CHOCOLATE FACTORY.
The accompanying diagram of a chocolate factory is reproduced by kind permission of the Berlin publishers of Dr. Paul Zipperer's well-known work on "The Manufacture of Chocolate," which contains much valuable information. The machinery described is that of Messrs. Lehmann, of Dresden, one of the largest makers on the Continent.
By means of the lift (1) all the raw materials, sugar, cocoa, packing, etc., are carried up to the store-rooms (2). Here are the machines for cleansing and picking the raw cocoa-beans, which are fed into the elevator boxes (3) above the cleansing machine (4), which frees them from dust; they then pass to the continuous band (5) on which they are picked over, and from which they fall into movable boxes (6). They are thence transferred to the hoppers (7), and fed by opening a slide in the hopper, into the roasting machine (8). The quantity contained in the hoppers is sufficient to charge the roasting machine. When the roasting is completed the cocoa is emptied into trucks (9), and carried to the exhaust arrangement (10), where the beans are cooled down, the vapour given off passing out into the open air. At the same time the air of the roasting chamber is sucked out through the funnel-shaped tube fitted to the cover. The roasted cocoa is then passed to boxes (11), to be conveyed by the elevator to the crushing and cleansing machine (12). After being cleansed, the cocoa is carried in trucks (13) to hoppers (14) by which it is fed into the mills (15) on the lower floor. The sugar mill and sifting apparatus (26) placed near the crushing and cleansing machines are also fed by a hopper from above. Cocoa and sugar are now supplied to the mixing machine (16), to be worked together before passing to the rolls (17) by which the final grinding is effected. After passing once or more through the mill, the finished chocolate mass is taken to the hot-room (18), where it remains in boxes until further treated, after which it is taken to the moulding-room. In the mixer (19) the mass acquires the consistency and temperature requisite for moulding. The mass is then taken in lumps to the dividing machine (20), and cut into pieces of the desired size and weight. On the table (21) the moulds, lying upon boards, are filled with chocolate and then taken to the shaking-table (22). By means of a double lift (23) the moulded chocolate, still lying upon boards, is conveyed to the cooling-room or cellar, in which there are benches or frames (24) for receiving the moulds as they are slipped off the boards. The cellar has to be cooled artificially, according to situation. Adjoining the cellar is the wrapping-room (25), and further on the warehouse. The goods so far finished are then taken by the lift (1) to the rooms where they are packed for delivery.
FOOTNOTES:
[13] For ancient processes see Appendix I., p. 103.
[14] "Chocolate is an article so disguised in the manufacture that it is impossible to tell its purity or value. The only safeguard is to buy that which bears the name of a reputable maker."—Chambers, "Manual of Diet."
[15] The heart-leaved bixa, or anotta.
[16] Log-wood.
IV. ITS HISTORY.
Although now cultivated in many other tropical countries, the cacao tree is one of the New World's rich gifts, first made known to our ancestors by the venturesome Spaniards, who probably became acquainted with its cultivation early in the sixteenth century, and spread the knowledge derived from the Mexicans and the inhabitants of Central America to their other colonies. They found cacao a more veritable mine of wealth than even the gold of which they procured such store. It is indeed a curious coincidence that in those countries of gold the cacao-beans were not only the form in which tribute was paid, but themselves passed as currency. On account of their use for this purpose by the Mexicans, Peter Martyr styled them amygdalæ pecuniariæ—"pecuniary almonds"—exclaiming: "Blessed money, which exempts its possessors from avarice, since it cannot be hoarded or hidden underground!"
Joseph Acosta tells us that "the Indians used no gold nor silver to trafficke in or buy withall ... and unto this day (1604) the custom continues amongst the Indians, as in the province of Mexico, instede of money they use cacao." The Aztecs also made use of cacao in this way, as many as 8,000 beans being legal tender—rather a task, one would imagine, for the money-changers.
In Nicaragua this practice was so general that "none but the rich and noble could afford to drink it, as it was literally drinking money." A rabbit sold there for ten beans, "a tolerably good slave" for a hundred. Slaves must, however, have been at a discount just then, if the silver value of the beans was no greater than when Thomas Candish wrote in 1586: "These cacaos serve amongst them both for meat and money ... 150 of them being as good as a Real of Plate"—about 6d. "A bag," of unknown size, "was worth ten crowns." One of the storehouses of Montezuma, the last of the old independent Mexican Chieftains,[18] was found by the Spaniards to contain as much as 40,000 loads of this precious commodity, in wicker baskets which six men could not grasp.
John Ogilby, writing in 1671 of the produce of America, says:
"But much more beneficial is the cacao, with which Fruit New Spain drives a great Trade; nay, serves for Coin'd Money. When they deliver a Parcel of Cacao, they tell them by five, thirty, and a hundred. Their Charity to the Poor never exceeds above one Cacao-nut. The chief Reason for which this Fruit is so highly esteem'd, is for the Chocolate, which is made of the same, without which the Inhabitants (being so us'd to it) are not able to live. Before the Spaniards made themselves Masters of Mexico, no other Drink was esteem'd but that of the Cacao; none caring for Wine, notwithstanding the Soil produces Vines everywhere in great Abundance of itself."
From contemporary travellers' records are to be gleaned many such strange facts and stranger fancies regarding the precious bean and its products, some of them extremely quaint and curious. Bancroft, for instance, writing of the Maya races of the Pacific, tells us that "before planting the seed they held a festival in honour of their gods, Ekchuah, Chac, and Hobnil, who were their patron deities. To solemnize it, they all went to the plantation of one of their number, where they sacrificed a dog having a spot on its skin the colour of cacao. They burned incense to their idols, after which they gave to each of the officials a branch of the cacao plant." Palacio also tells us that "the Pipiles, before beginning to plant, gathered all seeds in small bowls, after performing certain rites with them before the idol, among which was the drawing of blood from different parts of the body with which to anoint the idol;" and, as Ximinez states, "the blood of slain fowls was sprinkled over the land to be sown."
A CACAO PLANTATION.
(One of the earliest illustrations of this subject known, showing the shade trees, and beans drying.)
The idea that secret rites were necessary at the planting of cacao to counteract their ignorance of its requirements was long current also among the superstitious Spaniards, who similarly accounted for the early failures of the English, as witness the following amusing extract from a contribution to the Harleian Miscellany in 1690:
"Cocoa is now a commodity to be regarded in our colonies, though at first it was the principal invitation to the peopling of Jamaica, for those walks the Spaniards left behind them there, when we conquered it, produced such prodigious profit with so little trouble that Sir Thomas Modiford and several others set up their rests to grow wealthy therein, and fell to planting much of it, which the Spanish slaves had always foretold would never thrive, and so it happened: for, though it promised fair and throve finely for five or six years, yet still at that age, when so long hopes and cares had been wasted upon it, withered and died away by some unaccountable cause, though they imputed it to a black worm or grub, which they found clinging to its roots.... And did it not almost constantly die before, it would come into perfection in fifteen years' growth and last till thirty, thereby becoming the most profitable tree in the world, there having been £200 sterling made in one year of an acre of it. But the old trees, being gone by age and few new thriving, as the Spanish negroes foretold, little or none now is produced worthy the care and pains in planting and expecting it. Those slaves gave a superstitious reason for its not thriving, many religious rites being performed at its planting by the Spaniards, which their slaves were not permitted to see. But it is probable that, where a nation as they removed the art of making cochineal and curing vanilloes into their inland provinces, which were the commodities of those islands in the Indians' time, and forbade the opening of any mines in them for fear some maritime nation might be invited to the conquering of them, so they might, likewise, in their transplanting cocoa from the Caracas and Guatemala, conceal wilfully some secret in its planting from their slaves, lest it might teach them to set up for themselves by being able to produce a commodity of such excellent use for the support of man's life, with which alone and water some persons have been necessitated to live ten weeks together, without finding the least diminution of health or strength."
(Showing trays which slide on rails; the iron covers slide over the whole in case of wet.)
However valuable this last quality rendered the newly-discovered drink, its method of preparation and the unwonted spices employed prevented its ready adoption abroad, although the Spaniards and Portuguese took to it more kindly than some of the northern races. Joseph Acosta, writing of Mexico and Peru, says:
"The cocoa is a fruite little less than almonds, yet more fatte, the which being roasted hath no ill taste. It is so much esteemed among the Indians (yea, among the Spaniards), that it is one of the richest and the greatest traffickes of New Spain. The chief use of this cocoa is in a drincke which they call chocholaté, whereof they make great account, foolishly and without reason: for it is loathsome to such as are not acquainted with it, having a skumme or frothe that is very unpleasant to taste, if they be not well conceited thereof. Yet it is a drincke very much esteemed among the Indians, whereof they feast noble men as they passe through their country. The Spaniards, both men and women, that are accustomed to the country, are very greedy of this chocholaté. They say they make diverse sortes of it, some hote, some colde, and put therein much of that chili: yea, they make paste thereof, the which they say is good for the stomacke, and against the catarre."
But this was not the only medicinal property attributed to "the food of the gods," for the Aztecs used to prescribe as a cure for diarrhœa and dysentery a potion prepared of cacao mixed with the ground bones of their giant ancestors, exhumed in the mountains. Such a very active principle was sure to make its enemies too, and several amusing attacks have survived to witness their own refutation. It was regarded by some as a violent inflamer of the passions, which should be prohibited to the monks; for, as one writer puts it, "if such an interdiction had existed, the scandal with which that holy order has been branded might have proved groundless." As late as 1712, after its use had become established in this country, the mentor of the Spectator writes: "I shall also advise my fair readers to be in a particular manner careful how they meddle with romances, chocolates, novels, and the like inflamers, which I look upon as very dangerous to be made use of during this great carnival" (the month of May).
Some accounted for the assumed ill-effects of cocoa to its admixture with sugar in the form of chocolate, for a few years earlier a London doctor had declared that "coffee, chocolate, and tea were at the first used only as medicines while they continued unpleasant, but since they were made delicious with sugar they are become poison." Similarly, an anonymous assailant in a pamphlet "Printed at the Black Boy, over against St. Dunstan's Church, in Fleet Street," exclaims:
"As for the great quantity of sugar which is commonly put in, it may destroy the native and genuine temper of the chocolate, sugar being such a corrosive salt, and such an hypocritical enemy of the body. Simeon Pauli (a learned Dane) thinks sugar to be one cause of our English consumption, and Dr. Willis blames it as one of our universal scurvies: therefore, when chocolate produces any ill effects, they may be often imputed to the great superfluity of its sugar."
In the New World fewer questions were raised, and the only conscientious objection appears to have been felt by a Bishop of Chiapa, whose performance of the Mass was disturbed by its use. The story is told in Gaze's "New Survey of the West Indies," published in 1648, and is worth repetition. It is well to bear in mind his information that "two or three hours after a good meal of three or four dishes of mutton, veal or beef, kid, turkeys or other fowles, our stomackes would bee ready to faint, and so wee were fain to support them with a cup of chocolatte."
"The women of that city, it seems, pretend much weakness and squeamishness of stomacke, which they say is so great that they are not able to continue in church while the mass is briefly hurried over, much lesse while a solemn high mass is sung and a sermon preached, unles they drinke a cup of hot chocolatte and eat a bit of sweetmeats to strengthen their stomackes. For this purpose it was much used by them to make their maids bring them to church, in the middle of mass or sermon, a cup of chocolatte, which could not be done to all without a great confusion and interrupting both mass and sermon. The Bishop, perceiving this abuse, and having given faire warning for the omitting of it, but all without amendment, thought fit to fix in writing upon the church dores an excommunication against all such as should presume at the time of service to eate or drinke within the church. This excommunication was taken by all, but especially by the gentlewomen, much to heart, who protested, if they might not eate or drinke in the church, they could not continue in it to hear what otherwise they were bound unto. But none of these reasons would move the Bishop. The women, seeing him so hard to be entreated, began to slight him with scornefull and reproachfull words: others slighted his excommunication, drinking in iniquity in the church, as the fish doth water, which caused one day such an uproar in the Cathedrall that many swordes were drawn against the Priests, who attempted to take away from the maids the cups of chocolatte which they brought unto their mistresses, who at last, seeing that neither faire nor foule means would prevail with the Bishop, resolved to forsake the Cathedrall: and so 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."
The introduction of cocoa into Europe, indeed, as well as its cultivation for the European market, is due rather to the Jesuit missionaries than to the explorers of the Western Hemisphere. It was the monks, too, who about 1661 made it known in France. It is curious, therefore, to notice the contest that at one time raged among ecclesiastics as to whether it was lawful to make use of chocolate in Lent; whether it was to be regarded as food or drink. A consensus of opinion on the subject, published in Venice in 1748, states that
"Among the first Probabilist Theologians who undertook to write entire Treatises and to collect all the possible reasons as to whether the Indian beverage (chocolate) could agree with European fasting, was Father Tommaso Hurtado. He employed the whole of the Tenth Treatise of the second volume of the 'Moral Resolutions,' printed in 1651, and added thereto an Appendix of more chapters.
"Father Diana found reason for acquitting the consciences of those who, in time of fasting, should drink chocolate. Father Hurtado, more courageous withal, and more benign than Diana, does not speak of this treatise in order to investigate the law; the nature of fasting admits drinking without eating. Therefore consumers are, without the help of casuists, troubled themselves and afflicted, when in Lent they empty chocolate cups. Excited on the one hand by the pungent cravings of the throat to moisten it, reproved on the other by breaking their fast, they experience grave remorse of conscience; and, with consciences agitated and torn with drinking the sweet beverage, they sin. Under the guidance of these skilful theologians, the remorse aroused by natural and Divine light being blunted, Christians drink joyfully. For all agree that he will break his fast who eats any portion of chocolate, which, dissolved and well mixed with warm water, is not prejudicial to keeping a fast. This is a sufficiently marvellous presupposition. He who eats 4 ozs. of exquisite sturgeon roasted has broken his fast; if he has it dissolved and prepared in an extract of thick broth, he does not sin."
As for the introduction of cocoa into this country, the contemporary Gaze tells us that
"Our English and Hollanders make little use of it when they take a prize at sea, as, not knowing the secret virtue and quality of it for the good of the stomach, of whom I have heard the Spaniards say, when we have taken a good prize, a ship laden with cocoa, in anger and wrath we have hurled overboard this good commodity, not regarding the worth of it."
About the time of the Commonwealth, however, the new drink began to make its way among the English, and the Public Advertiser of 1657 contains the notice that "in Bishopsgate Street, in Queen's Head Alley, at a Frenchman's house, is an excellent West India drink, called chocolate, to be sold, where you may have it ready at any time, and also unmade, at reasonable rates." These rates appear to have been from 10s. to 15s. a pound, a price which made chocolate, rather than coffee, the beverage of the aristocracy, who flocked to the chocolate-houses soon to spring up in the fashionable centres. Here, records a Spanish visitor to London, were to be found such members of the polite world as were not at the same time members of either House. The chocolate-houses were thus the forerunners of our modern clubs, and one of them, "The Cocoa Tree," early the headquarters of the Jacobite party, became subsequently recognised as the club of the literati, including among its members such men as Garrick and Byron. White's Cocoa House, adjoining St. James' Palace, was even better known, eventually developing into the respectable White's Club, though at one time a great gambling centre.[19]
A little later the "Indian Nectar," recommended by a learned doctor on account of "its secret virtue," was to be obtained of "an honest though poor man" in East Smithfield at 6s. 8d. a pound, or the "commoner sort at about half the price," so that it was getting within more general reach. Subsequently the following advertisement appeared regarding a patented preparation of cocoa "now sold at 4s. 9d. per pound."
"N.B.—The curious may be supplied with this superfine chocolate, that exceeds the finest sold by other makers, plain at 6s., with vanillos at 7s. To be sold for ready money only at Mr. Churchman's Chocolate Warehouse, at Mr. John Young's, in St. Paul's Churchyard, London, A.D. 1732."
The opportunities of increasing the revenue from the growing favourite were not lost sight of, and till 1820 its spread was checked by a duty of 1s. 6d. a pound, collected by the sale of stamped wrappers for each pound, half-pound, or quarter-pound, "neither more nor less," just as in the case of patent medicines at present.
In the reign of George III. the duty on colonial cocoa was raised to 1s. 10d. a pound, that on such as the East India Company imported to 2s., and that on all other sources of supply to 3s. In the early years of the last century the cocoa imported from any country not a British possession was charged no less than 5s. 10d. a pound as excise, with an extra Custom's duty of from 2½d. to 4¾d. on entry for home consumption. This restrictive tariff was by degrees relaxed, but it is only since 1853 that the duty has been reduced to 2d. a pound on the manufactured article, or 1d. a pound on the raw material.
While the heavy duties were in force, all houses in which the manufacture or sale of cocoa was carried on were compelled to have the fact stated over their doors, under penalty of £200 from the dealer having more than six pounds in his possession (who had to be licensed), and £100 from the customer encouraging the illicit trade. No less than £500 as fine and twelve months in the county gaol were inflicted for counterfeiting the stamp or selling chocolate without a stamp. To prevent evasion by selling the drink ready made, it was enacted under George I., whose physicians were extolling its medicinal virtues, that
"Notice shall be given by those who make chocolate for private families, and not for sale, three days before it is begun to be made, specifying the quantity, etc., and within three days after it is finished the person for whom it is made shall enter the whole quantity on oath, and have it duly stamped."
Nothing is more eloquent of the growing favour in which cocoa is held in this country, as its real value becomes more generally appreciated, than the remarkable progressive increase of the quantities imported during recent years, as will be seen from the table appended. These quantities doubled between 1880 and 1890, and have since more than doubled again.
TABLE SHOWING THE QUANTITIES OF CACAO CLEARED FOR HOME CONSUMPTION SINCE 1880.
| lbs. | ||
| 1880 | 10,556,159 | |
| 1881 | 10,897,795 | |
| 1882 | 11,996,853 | |
| 1883 | 12,868,170 | |
| 1884 | 13,976,891 | |
| 1885 | 14,595,168 | |
| 1886 | 15,165,714 | |
| 1887 | 15,873,698 | |
| 1888 | 18,227,017 | |
| 1889 | 18,464,164 | |
| 1890 | 20,224,175 | |
| 1891 | 21,599,860 | |
| 1892 | 20,797,283 | |
| 1893 | 20,874,995 | |
| 1894 | 22,441,048 | |
| 1895 | 24,484,502 | |
| 1896 | 24,523,428 | |
| 1897 | 27,852,152 | |
| 1898 | 32,087,084 | |
| 1899 | 34,013,812 | |
| 1900 | 37,829,326 | |
| 1901 | 42,353,724 | |
| 1902 | 45,643,784 | |
V. ITS SOURCES AND VARIETIES.
Guayaquil, in the republic of Ecuador, on the west coast of South America, produces the largest output in the world. This cacao has a bold bean and a fine flavour, and is rich in theobromine; it is much valued on the market, and its strength and character render it indispensable to the manufacturer.
The neighbouring countries of Columbia and Venezuela, facing the Caribbean Sea, have for centuries grown cacao of excellent quality. The criollo (creole) bean is generally used as seed, and for it high prices are obtained. Owing, however, to the unsettled state of the republics and their unstable governments, its cultivation has gone back rather than forward during the past decade. With better administration and settled peace, great developments might easily be achieved. The British Royal Mail Steam Packet Company provides a good fortnightly service to England.
In early times the Jesuit missionaries encouraged the natives to form small plantations on the borders of the river Orinoco, and Father Gumilla, in his "History of the Orinoco," says: "I have seen in these plains forests of wild cacao-trees, laden with bunches of pods, supplying food to an infinite multitude of monkeys, squirrels, parrots, and other animals."
The name of "Soconosco" cocoa is still a guarantee of excellent quality. This district in Guatemala was in bygone days so noted for its cacao that the whole crop was monopolized for the use of the Spanish Court. In Central America, as in other countries, the Spaniards gathered more solid riches from the cacao than from the gold mines they hoped to discover.
British and Dutch Guiana produced but little cacao as long as sugar realized high prices, but in comparatively recent years it has been more extensively planted, and the crops from the lowlands at the mouths of the great South American rivers have been very heavy.
In French Guiana cacao was scarcely cultivated until about 1734, when a forest of it was discovered on a branch of the Yari, which flows into the Amazon. From this forest seeds were gathered, and plantations were laid out in Cayenne.
The cacao of Pará in Brazil differs from all other growths; the bean is much smaller and rounder, and is elongated, but when well cured it is mild, and has a very pleasant flavour, highly valued by manufacturers. Bahia produces large quantities of cacao, formerly of an inferior quality, owing to careless cultivation and indiscriminate mixing of all that was brought from the interior, some of it wild and uncured. But now this state of things is being improved, and the good quality of "fermented" Bahian cacao is fully recognised.
A little cacao is grown in the low-lying parts of Rio Janeiro, but it is not to be met with further south than this. The part of Florida which borders the Gulf of Mexico and the southern part of Louisiana mark the northerly limit of its natural growth.[20] A traveller in Louisiana in 1796 speaks of the cacao-tree among others as "covering with delightful shade the shores of the Mississippi," and on the banks of the Alatamaha in Georgia, but it is not cultivated so far north.
At the present day the West India Islands rival the South American Continent in providing cocoa from the New World. Trinidad has for more than a century deservedly claimed to be the first of these cocoa-producing islands. As far back as the sixteenth century the Spaniards who first colonized the island were interested in the cultivation of cacao. In the year 1780 a French gentleman residing in the neighbouring island of Grenada visited Trinidad, and gave such a glowing account of its fertility that agriculturists from France and elsewhere flocked to the colony, and ever since this date it has maintained a high standard of agricultural advance. The names of the cacao estates at the present day are nearly all Spanish or French, and throughout the British occupation of more than a hundred years the old families have in many cases held the same lands.[21]
The oldest estates in the island lie in the northern valleys of Santz Cruz, Maracas, and Arima; but cultivation has been considerably extended in the Montserrat and Naparima districts, and more recently in almost every part of the island reached by the extension of the railway and the coasting steamboat. The Trinidad bean is the largest and finest flavoured, and commands a higher price on the market than any other from the West Indies.
Next in importance to Trinidad is the little island of Grenada; here cacao is the staple industry, the sugar estates that once lined the shores having entirely disappeared. Grenada cacao is smaller than that of Trinidad, possibly on account of the different method of planting described in a previous chapter, but the flavour of the bean is exceedingly good and regular, and the crop is bought up eagerly on the British and American markets. The other West Indian islands producing cocoa are Jamaica and Dominica, where its cultivation is reviving; also St. Lucia, St. Vincent, Tobago, and Montserrat, each of which have a few plantations; those in St. Vincent suffered severely by the recent hurricane. The French islands of Guadeloupe and Martinique supply exclusively to the port of Havre; the cocoa from San Domingo is of a somewhat inferior quality. Cuba will probably considerably extend its output under American rule.
In the Eastern Hemisphere by far the largest supplies come from the small islands of St. Thomé and Principe, in the Gulf of Guinea, belonging to the Portuguese. These have in recent years proved especially adapted for the growth of the cacao, and the exports, especially from the island of St. Thomé, are very large; most of the crop finds its way to European markets, transhipping at Lisbon. There is little cacao grown in the mainland African colonies, though the German Government offers special inducements in the Kameruns; no British African colony grows it to any extent. Fernando Po sends supplies to Spain, and occasionally on the London market strange packages made of rough cowhide stitched with leather thongs are seen, containing beans from Madagascar.
Further east are the plantations of Ceylon. In the hill districts, of which Matale is the centre, are many estates, some in joint cultivation of tea and cocoa. The output from this colony is at the present time nearly stationary. The Dutch East Indian produce is almost exclusively shipped to Amsterdam.
In the preceding pages extracts have frequently been culled from writers of the past: in the literature of the present day Charles Kingsley's graphic account of Trinidad and its cacao and sugar plantations in "At Last" should be read in extenso. Another very interesting episode of modern date is the introduction of the cacao into the Samoan Islands in the Pacific by Robert Louis Stevenson. Writing to Sidney Colvin, on December 7, 1891, in one of his "Vailima Letters," he says:
"When I was filling baskets all Saturday, in my dull, mulish way, perhaps the slowest worker there, surely the most particular, and the only one that never looked up or knocked off, I could not but think I should have been sent on exhibition as an example to young literary men. 'Here is how to learn to write' might be the motto. You should have seen us; the veranda was like an Irish bog, our hands and faces were bedaubed with soil, and Faauma was supposed to have struck the right note when she remarked (à propos of nothing), 'Too much eleele (soil) for me.' The cacao, you must understand, has to be planted at first in baskets of plaited cocoa-leaf.[22] From four to ten natives were plaiting these in the wood-shed. Four boys were digging up soil and bringing it by the boxful to the veranda. Lloyd and I and Belle, and sometimes S. (who came to bear a hand), were filling the baskets, removing stones and lumps of clay; Austin and Faauma carried them when full to Fanny, who planted a seed in each, and then set them, packed close, in the corners of the veranda. From 12 on Friday till 5 p.m. on Saturday we planted the first 1,500, and more than 700 of a second lot. You cannot dream how filthy we were, and we were all properly tired."[23]
Three years later he records:
"I have been forbidden to work, and have been instead doing my two or three hours in the plantation every morning. I only wish somebody would pay me £10 a day for taking care of cacao, and I could leave literature to others."
Cacao cultivation in this island of Upolu has since that date developed wonderfully, and is attracting much attention, the first produce having been sold in Hamburg at a very high price. The consular report on Samoa published in February, 1903, states that "the mainstay of Samoa is cocoa," and it will be interesting to follow the progress of an industry of which the versatile Scotchman was an early pioneer.
FOOTNOTES:
[20] Florida even boasts a town of the name of Cocoa, but inquiries on the spot have failed to discover that any attempt was ever made to cultivate the plant there.
[21] Two of the coloured plates in this volume are reproductions of pictures by members of one of the oldest French families in the island, painted on their cocoa estate in the beautiful valley of Santa Cruz.
[22] Leaf of the coco-nut palm.
APPENDIX I.
ANCIENT MANUFACTURE OF COCOA.
Most of the operations described are only the performance on a large scale by modern machinery of those employed by the Mexicans, and by those who learned from them, of whom we read: