Finally the beans are turned on to a tray to dry in the sun.  They are still sticky, but of a brown, mahogany colour.  Among them are pieces of fibre and other “trash,” as well as small, undersized beans, or “balloons,” as the nearly empty shell of an unformed bean is called.  While a man shovels the beans into a heap, a group of women, with skirts kilted high, tread round the sides of the heap, separating the beans that still hold together.  Then the beans are passed on to be spread in layers on trays in the full heat of the tropical sun, the temperature being upwards of 140 deg.  F.[11] When thus spread, the women can readily pick out the foreign matter and undersized beans.  Two or three days will suffice to dry them, after which they are put in bags for the markets of the world, and will keep with but very slight loss of weight or aroma for a year or more.

Between crops the labourers are employed in “cutlassing,” pruning, and cleaning the land and trees.  Nearly all the work is in pleasant shade, and none of it harder than the duties of a market gardener in our own country; indeed, the work is less exacting, for daylight lasts at most but thirteen hours, limiting the time that a man can see in the forest:  ten hours per day, with rests for meals, is the average time spent on the estate.  Wages are paid once a month, and a whole holiday follows pay-day, when the stores in town are visited for needful supplies.  Other holidays are not infrequent, and between crops the slacker days give ample time for the cultivation of private gardens.

Labourers from India are largely imported by the Government under contract with the planters, and the strictest regulations are observed in the matter of housing, medical aid, etc.  At the expiration of the term of contract (about six years) a free pass is granted to return to India, if desired.  Many, however, prefer to remain in their adopted home, and become planters themselves, or continue to labour on the smaller estates, which are generally worked by free labour, as the preparations for contracted labour are expensive, and can only be undertaken on a large scale.

[Illustration—­Black and White Plate:  Labourer’s Cottage, Cacao Estate, Trinidad. (Bread Fruit and Bananas.)]

The natives of India work on very friendly terms with the coloured people of the islands, the descendants of the old African slaves, and the cocoa estate provides a healthy life for all, with a home amid surroundings of the most congenial kind.[12]

[Illustration—­Drawing:  BASKETS OF CACAO ON PLANTAIN LEAVES.]

In other cocoa-growing countries processes vary somewhat.  On the larger estates artificial drying is slowly superseding the natural method, for though the sun at its best is all that is needed, a showery day will seriously interfere with the process, even though the sliding roof is promptly pulled across to keep the rain from the trays.