32 COCOA 



and qualify for promotion, must be a smart, steady, 

 and industrious man, with plenty of initiative and 

 self-reliance. For instance, you see that boyish- 

 looking young Briton sitting opposite us in the far 

 corner of our carriage : I happen to, know, and I am 

 sure you will be interested to hear, that he is a new 

 assistant, just turned twenty-two years of age, who 

 only arrived at Accra yesterday, and who is now off 

 up the line to distribute several thousand pounds 

 among fellow assistants who are buying cocoa for his 

 firm; he has the money with him in sacks under his 

 feet, and in suit cases on the seat beside him and in 

 the rack over his head. Of our other European fellow 

 passengers, three are fellow-countrymen, and two are 

 Frenchmen; judging from their conversation, some 

 are Old Coasters returning to their work of cocoa 

 buying, and others are newcomers going to learn what 

 it means to be an assistant at a cocoa-buying station. 



The blacks who are travelling first class with us 

 favour a neglige style of ready-made tweeds or boating 

 costume; they are traders, we are told, doing a big 

 business in cocoa as middlemen. 



Everyone around us is talking about cocoa the 

 price is still rising, we hear, the present Big Season will 

 be a short one, as there has been so little rain this year, 

 so and so in such or such a place is buying more cocoa 

 than any of his neighbouis. We are getting used to 

 cocoa as the sole topic of conversation anywhere and 

 everywhere from morning till night; indeed, there is 

 so much interest and excitement in the air over cocoa, 

 and so much cocoa in evidence, that we ourselves are 

 already beginning to talk, think, and dream of nothing 

 but cocoa. 



A few miles out from Accra we catch sight of cocoa 



