52 COCOA 



CHAPTER X 



GOING TO MARKET 



WE have travelled by train to Mangoase, thence up 

 the line to Tafo; and from Tafo we have returned by 

 car to Koforidua, where we are now staying. 



It is early morning. The sun has only just risen, 

 but we are up and dressed and sitting on the verandah 

 of the bungalow that has been our happy home for 

 the past two days. Eagerly we watch the road that 

 skirts the garden. 



Presently, round a bend in the road comes a figure 

 carrying a white bag on his head. He is followed by 

 another and another, each balancing a headload that 

 looks as if it might be a bundle of linen. We snatch 

 up our sun helmets and hurry out. The spectacle for 

 which we have been waiting has begun . . . the farmers 

 and their families are bringing in their cocoa for sale. 



By the time we reach the road, crowds of carriers are 

 in sight. On they come, in an endless but broken pro- 

 cession of groups, twenty, thirty, fifty or more men, 

 women and children to the group. Everyone is head- 

 ing a load of something to market, and most of the loads 

 consist of sixty pounds of cocoa beans in a white or 

 blue and white cotton wrapper. Some of the very 

 small pickins have loads which look bigger than them- 

 selves. At intervals a man appears on the scene, rolling 

 along an enormous barrel; these barrels contain 5 cwt. 

 or half a ton of cocoa beans, according to whether they 

 are of the puncheon or butt size. 



The prevailing style of dress is a more or less scanty 

 attire, but the whole effect of the costumes in this great 

 march of darkies to market is very picturesque. Here 



