port on the backs of mules, in horse or ox carts, in canoes down a
stream, or more rarely, by rail. It is then conveyed by lighters or surf
boats to the great ocean liners which lie anchored off the shore. In the
hold of the liner it is rocked thousands of miles over the azure seas of
the tropics to the grey-green seas of the temperate zone. In pre-war
days a million bags used to go to Hamburg, three-quarters of a million
to New York, half a million to Havre, and only a trifling quarter of a
million to London. Now London is the leading cacao market of the world.
During the war the supplies were cut off from Hamburg, whilst Liverpool,
becoming a chief port for African cacao, in 1916 imported a million
bags. Then New York began to gorge cacao, and in 1917 created a record,
importing some two and a half million bags, or about 150,000 tons.
Whilst everything is in so fluid a condition it is unwise to prophesy;
it may, however, be said that there are many who think, now that the
consumption of cocoa and chocolate in America has reached such a
prodigious figure, that New York may yet oust London and become the
central dominating market of the world.

[Illustration: SURF BOATS BY THE SIDE OF THE OCEAN LINER, ACCRA.]

_Difficulties of Buying._

Every country produces a different kind of cacao, and the cacao from any
two plantations in the same country often shows wide variation. It may
be said that there are as many kinds of cacao as there are of apples,
cacao showing as marked differences as exhibited by crabs and Blenheims,
not to mention James Grieves, Russets, Worcester Pearmains, Newton
Wonders, Lord Derbys, Belle de Boskoops, and so forth. Further, whilst
the bulk of the cacao is good and sound, a little of the cacao grown in
any district is liable to have suffered from drought or from attacks by
moulds or insect pests. It will be realised from these fragmentary
remarks that the buyer must exercise perpetual vigilance.

[Illustration: BAGGING CACAO BEANS FOR SHIPMENT, TRINIDAD.]

[Illustration: TRANSFERRING BAGS OF CACAO BEANS TO LIGHTERS, TRINIDAD.]

_Cacao Sales._

Before the Cocoa Prices Orders were published (March, 1918) the manner
of conducting the sale of cacao in London was as follows. Brokers' lists
giving the kinds of cacao for sale, and the number of bags of each, were
sent, together with samples, to the buyers some days beforehand, so that
they were able to decide what they wished to purchase and