AMONG THE GOLD COAST COCOA FARMS 49 



yes, it is just possible that someone on a neighbouring 

 farm is getting beans ready to ferment, and if we 

 discover some folks over yonder doing what we want 

 to look at next, perhaps they will be able to tell us 

 where there is a chance of finding someone else attend- 

 ing to beans in ether ways. Certainly, one of the 

 men will come with us to show us the way to a place 

 where one of the women thinks we may find pods being 

 opened. 



BREAKING COCOA. For mile after mile we plod after 

 our new guide. We are drenched to the skin with 

 steam heat, very weary of struggling through trackless 

 seas of leaves and negotiating the stony beds and 

 swampy morasses of parched streams. Our leader 

 seems to be taking us on an exploring expedition that 

 is akin to a wild goose chase. Comes the moment 

 when our courage fails us to the point of urging us to 

 discuss whether we shall turn back and make for the 

 car, but we decide to follow on in case we should be 

 nearly "there." A few minutes later we sight our 

 reward. 



Seated on the ground in a rough semicircle, around 

 a mound of pods and a heap of beans, is a family 

 party. With a cutlass the men slash open the pods, 

 and, using the point of the cutlass as a scoop, they toss 

 the contents of each pod on the heap of beans at their 

 side. 



Each pod contains about forty beans, arranged, 

 as you see, in rows. The beans are held together in 

 one slimy mass by a sticky white pulp, and it is in one 

 mass, usually, that the contents of each pod are ex- 

 tracted at the point of the cutlass. 



The women of the party are busy breaking up the 

 sticky masses into single beans, and picking out rubbish 



7 



