Of the many varieties of the cacao, the best known are the _criollo_, _forastero_, and _calabacilla_. The _criollo_ ("native") fruit is of average size, characterized by a "pinched" neck and a curving point. This is the best kind, though not the most productive; it is largely planted in Venezuela, Columbia and Ceylon, and produces a bean light in colour and delicate in flavour. The _forastero_ ("foreign") pod is long and regular in shape, deeply furrowed, and generally of a rough surface. The _calabacilla_ ("little calabash") is smooth and round, like the fruit after which it is named. All varieties are seen in bearing with red, yellow, purple, and sometimes green pods, the colour not being necessarily an indication of ripeness.
[Illustration--Black and White Plate: Varieties of the Cacao.]
On breaking open the pod, the beans are seen clinging in a cluster round a central fibre, the whole embedded in a white sticky pulp, through which the red skin of the cacao-bean shows a delicate pink. The pulp has the taste of acetic acid, refreshing in a hot climate, but soon dries if exposed to the sun and air. The pod or husk is of a porous, woody nature, from a quarter to half an inch thick, which, when thrown aside on warm moist soil, rots in a day or two.
Much has been written of life on a cocoa estate; and all who have enjoyed the proverbial hospitality of a West Indian or Ceylon planter, highly praise the conditions of their life. The description of an estate in the northern hills of Trinidad will serve as an example. The other industry of this island is sugar, in cultivating which the coloured labourers work in the broiling sun, as near to the steaming lagoon as they may in safety venture. Later on in the season the long rows between the stifling canes have to be hoed; then, when the time of "crop" arrives, the huge mills in the _usine_ are set in motion, and for the longest possible hours of daylight the workers are in the field, loading mule-cart or light railway with massive canes. In the yard around the crushing-mills the shouting drivers bring their mule-teams to the mouth of the hopper, and the canes are bundled into the crushing rollers with lightning speed. The mills run on into the night, and the hours of sleep are only those demanded by stern necessity, until the crop is safely reaped and the last load of canes reduced to shredded _megass_ and dripping syrup.