From the end of the 19th century to the middle of the 20th century, the 30 cocoa and coffee "rocas" (pronounced ro-ssas), or plantations, on Sao Tome and Principe were at their zenith.
Before World War I, the rocky Portuguese-ruled archipelago in the Gulf of Guinea, off Africa's western coast, was the world's leading cocoa exporter.
No Sao Tomeans worked on the plantations themselves but some did hold management positions.
The rocas' agricultural workers came from other African nations, as Sao Tome had a steady supply of slaves passing through as the last staging post on the trade route before ships left for the Americas.
After the slave trade was abolished in 1876, the workers became "contract" employees, brought -- often by force -- from mainland colonies as Angola and Mozambique, Gabon and Congo.
It is hard to match the state of the plantation today in what is now one of the poorest countries in the world with the glorious recollections conjured up by an elderly former employee.
Whatever is left of the prosperous past has been looted or is rotting away as the forest takes over.
