40 COCOA 



by any farmer, or how many cocoa trees he possesses. 

 Ignorance of such details is a valuable asset : practically 

 every farmer has to pay tribute in money or in kind to 

 someone above him the yeoman to a headman, the 

 headman to a village chief, the village chief to a petty 

 chief of the district, the petty chief to a paramount 

 chief. The less each one knows about what he possesses 

 the more chance he has of getting off cheaply in the 

 payment of tribute. 



Both in the Gold Coast Colony and Ashanti the 

 labourers on a farm consist almost entirely of the 

 farmer's large family of near and distant relations; 

 most of the work is done by women and children. 



In the Colony, the Gas are frequently to be found 

 acting as wayside cocoa dealers; you will see numbers 

 of them, when we go out early one morning to watch 

 cocoa being taken to market, standing in the country 

 lanes trying to cajole the farmers as they come along 

 into selling their cocoa to them, instead of taking it 

 direct to the factories of the European buyers and 

 shippers in the neighbouring village. 



Here comes the car to take us to some of the farms 

 around Nsawam. 



"Ready," we reply to our host's summons, and 

 suiting the action N to the word we leave one enter- 

 tainment to go on to another. The pleasure of moving 

 on to fresh scenes in this country is always tinged with 

 regret at leaving behind something of which we should 

 have liked to see more . . . and some one of our 

 countrymen who has made us very welcome. 



