466 



The Supplement to the Tropical Agriculturist 



about 24,500 metric tons, of which Principe con- 

 tributes about 1,500 tons, S. Thome yielding 

 the rest. At £50 per metric ton, the value of the 

 output would work out to £1,225,000, and at 650 

 kilos per hectare, the area under cultivation 

 may be approximately estimated as 796,250 hec- 

 tares, or over 190,000 acres (say 300 square miles). 



THE HARVESTING 



of the crop is done as follows :— the capsules as 

 gathered are broken on the spot, and the 

 beans with the pulp still on them are loaded 

 into wagons running on the Decauville lines 

 of trolly-railway forming a net-work of com- 

 munication on every property of importance, 

 the husks beiDg left in heaps to rot and furnish 

 manure for fresh pits to be dug to supply blanks 

 in the plantation. As the wagons get filled they 

 are coupled up into trains and sent in by mule 

 traction, or, if the slope permits of it, run down 

 by their own velocity (restrained by a brake), to 

 the nearest de.pendencii (a barrack yard of 

 cooly lines and stores under control of a resident 

 European assistant, of whom each important 

 property has a staff of from 20 to 50 including 

 artisans. There they are either left in the wa- 

 gons to ferment, or, if the season is a busy one, 

 transhipped to a special train of fermentation 

 bins on trollies, leaving the wagon free for 

 further work. In either case the wagons or bin 

 is closed by a tight-fitting lid, care being taken 

 that the beans are not crushed thereby. The 



FEEMENTAT (ON 



process is quicker in wet weather, slower 

 in dry, varying from two to six days, and 

 also, 1 think, regulated in duration according 

 to the experience and practice of the various 

 managers. In the small native properties, the 

 owners of which do a minimum of cultivation 

 and supplement their own scanty crop by thefts 

 or illicit purchase from the hands working on 

 the large estates, the beans are shot into any 

 convenient receptacle, the favourite being an un- 

 serviceable canoe, and covered with banana 

 leaves till fermentation is complete. The Vene- 

 zuelan or West Indian processes such as terrage, 

 the polishing of the bean under foot, and washing 

 are not in use, the bean after fermentation 

 being simply dried in the sun upon rolling plat- 

 forms 60 constructed as to be run under cover 

 on the first warning of a shower. Naturally, this 

 important operation has to be conducted under 

 European control, and in the best-planned rogas 

 the drying platforms are in full view of the 

 adminixtrador' s bungalow, from the upstairs 

 verandah of which, when resting or doing his 

 office work, the chief can keep an eye on his 

 subordinate and see that his gang are being 

 adequately supervised. In the Boa hntruda 

 plantations and in those of the Marquez de 

 Valle Flor adjoining them, the platforms are 

 arranged in eight rows of five each, forming four 

 tiers one above the other, making 160 platforms 

 in all, each little train of five running on its own 

 line of rails so that it can at a touch be moved 

 into or out of cover independently of all the rest. 



From the time when the fermentation bins 

 are first opened, to the end of the process, a 



CHARACTERISTIC VINOUS ODOUR, 



not disagreeable, pervades the house and barrack 

 yards, making itself felt to a considerable dis- 



tance around. It is a generally recognised experi- 

 ence that a smell, bo it pleasant or the reverse, is 

 one of the most powerful associations in aid of 

 memory. Speaking personally, were it possible for 

 one knowing the place in former years to be sud- 

 denly dropped from the clouds into Madras, Hy- 

 derabad, Malta or Port Said, and let me now add 

 S. Thome to the list, one might almost find one's 

 bearings by the recognition of the prevailing 

 odour. The fermenting bean smells not unlike 

 the must of the grape spilt about on the vine- 

 yards of Torres Vedras or the Douro, but with 

 a quite perceptible difference. 



When the climate is too persistently damp to 

 allow of complete drying in the sun (and this is 

 the case in most parts of the islands) artificial 

 heat is resorted to. But it is unsatisfactory, the 

 machinery generally roasting the bean instead 

 of drying it. It is generally agreed that good 



BRITISH MACHINERY WOULD SOLVE THE PROBLEM. 



But it is the old story over again. The Yankee 

 or German commercial traveller, on the spot, or 

 due to arrive at known intervals, is, as a rule, a 

 genial companionable fellow, with a fluent com- 

 mand of the language, ready to promise anything 

 his clients may reasonably want by way of modi- 

 fication or adaptation of the standard type of 

 machine (and to do him justice he takes pains 

 to carry out their suggestions) ; while Great 

 Britain is only represented by a catalogue or 

 two, brought to the island by the German trader 

 himself (for the latter's samples are quite im- 

 partial as to nationality of origin !), and printed 

 as often as not in English — a language unfamiliar 

 to most of the proprietors or administradors — 

 with weights and measures that even an English- 

 man has difficulty in using for his own purposes, 

 let alone interpreting in metric figures for his 

 neighbours. I have, it must be admitted, seen 

 catalogues of English engineering firms, written 

 in good Portuguese, with metrical and Britannic 

 figures of weights and dimensions appended 

 to each diagram, and a general invitation to the 

 public to regard the diagram as a type capable 

 of variation to suit each case. But 



NO CATALOGUE CAN SPEAK AS A COMMERCIAL 

 TRAVELLER CAN, 



and in a land where much noisy talk is the soul 

 of business, no Portuguese colonist will trouble 

 to embark on a correspondence in a foreign lan- 

 guage so long as he has a man to talk to who will 

 sell him rubbish and stand any amount of chaff 

 as to its inferiority without losing his temper or 

 assuming the "take it or leave it " attitude gen- 

 erally ascribed to the Briton. Perhaps this class 

 of business is not worth cultivating ; not being 

 a manufacturer I cannot say; but as an outsider 

 it strikes me that more intimate relations be- 

 tween our large engineering houses and the 

 cacao planters of these islands would be an excel- 

 lent thing for both, in more directions than one. 



I pass over the final stages of preparation of 

 the bean for the market, its transport by pri- 

 vate rail to thejetty of the plantation, whence it 

 is carried by launch to the vessel of the Em- 

 preza Nacional— the rich Portuguese Shipping 

 Company holding the practical monopoly of the 

 colony's carrying trade — and its subsequent 

 disposal in Europe. These are matters outside 

 the scope of my notes. 



