246 TRINIDAD. 



the year, viz., the June and the December crops, extending 

 over two months ; there are, however, partial pickings in the 

 intervals. The pods come to maturity within three months and 

 a half, rain hastening ripening. They are detached from the 

 tree with a knife or with a blade of peculiar form, attached to 

 the end of a long pole, so as to reach the highest branches. 

 They are afterwards gathered into heaps, and each pod is opened 

 with a strong knife or short "cutlass. The beans are then taken 

 out, put into baskets, and carried to the curing-house, there to be 

 cured and dried. Different methods may be adopted for curing 

 and drying cacao for the market. According to one method, the 

 beans are immediately spread out in large flat boxes or trays, or 

 on an earthen floor, left exposed to the action of the sun, put 

 under shelter for the night, to be spread out again the next day ; 

 this is repeated till they are sufficiently dried to be packed into 

 bags. 



The cacao thus prepared is of a red colour, flinty, heavy, and 

 bitter ; in fact, the worst sample from which to prepare chocolate, 

 but by far the best to bear adulteration, by admixture with 

 amylaceous substances. 



The beans (when recently taken from the pods) are covered 

 with a sort of sweetish acidulated pulp, which it is necessary to 

 destroy ; this is done by submitting them to fermentation ; in 

 fact, no cacao can be pronounced a good marketable article 

 which has not undergone the process of fermentation or sweating. 

 With this object in view, the seeds are gathered in heaps, and 

 covered with plantains or balisier leaves, or blankets, and left in 

 that condition for four, five, six, or even seven or eight days, 

 according as the prevailing weather is dry or not. When they have 

 gone through a thorough process of sweating, they are spread 

 for a few hours, put in heaps again, and allowed a few hours' 

 more fermentation, say eighteen hours. They are then spread 

 on a drying earthen floor, and left exposed to the sun for a 

 shorter or longer period. This is the plan preferred on the Main, 

 and it is undoubtedly the best when there is fair weather and no 

 danger of rain ; but in no place, as I believe, is cacao buried as 

 a preparative for drying. When dried in trays or on a plank 

 floor, the beans are sometimes sprinkled with finely-pulverised 

 earth, when still damp from the sweating heaps. The plan 

 adopted in Trinidad is the following: — One or more curing- 



