260 CAMPS IN THE CARIBBEES. 
leaves in autumn, and all around are little heaps of 
opened pods, from which the pulp has been taken and 
the seeds extracted. 
The tree is about as long in attaining its growth as 
the orange tree; it may produce in the third year 
from the seed, but does not reach its full bearing 
period until at the age of seven or eight. It is a 
tender plant during the first stages of its growth, and, 
like the coffee, must be shaded by some broad-leaved 
plant like the plantain or banana, which, of quicker 
growth, are set out near the seed at time of planting. 
Heat and moisture are indispensable to its existence, 
but one without the other proves fatal to its growth. 
We may consider it as a blessing or a curse to the 
islands, according to the light in which we view it. 
As the bread-fruit is reckoned by the planters as a 
curse, because it enables the negro to live without 
work, and deprives the plantations of his labor, so the 
cacao, by giving its cultivators a certain income with- 
out toil, after the first few years of its growth, induces 
the production of an idle, and consequently insolent, 
population. Once started in life with an acre or so of 
cacao trees, the negro asks for nothing more, his wife 
and children gather the harvest, and he enjoys an 
idle existence as only a negro knows how. 
The fruit of the cacao resembles somewhat an 
overripe cucumber about six inches in length, oval 
and pointed. Many of the pods grow right out of 
the trunk of the tree, hanging by short stems, and 
remind one of tailless rats. They are beautifully 
colored, varying according to the specimen and the 
progress towards maturity; some are green, some 
yellow, crimson or purple, some variegated by veins 
