74 THE REV. F. A. WALKEE, D.D., F.L.S., ON 



^oteiii liawlhisoii s Herodotus on tlie Castor Oil Plant. — The 

 Ricinns conwnmis, the castor oil phiiit, or the Palrna Christiy 

 in Arabic Kharneh, was knoAvn by the names of Croton, 

 Trixis, wild or tree-sesamnm, and (according to Biosco- 

 rides) of creaeXi KinrpLov. Avhich was doubtless the same as the 

 (7fA\iKV7rpcov of Herodotns. Jt grew abundantly, according to 

 Pliny, as it still dt)es, in Egypt. The oil was extracted 

 either by pressing the seeds, as at the present day, when 

 required for lamps, or by boiling them and skimming off the 

 oil that floated on the surface, which was thought better 

 for medicinal purposes. Pliuy was not singular in his- 

 taste when he says (xv, 7), '* Cilns fa'durn, hicernis utile.' 

 "Disgusting for food, useful for lamps/' 



Note in Pau'linsons Ancient Egypt, Vol. I, p. 54, on the 

 Castor Oil Plant. — The sillicyprium, or castor oil tree 

 {Ricinus communis), grows abundantly in Egypt. It is a 

 plant of a considerable size, with leaves like those of the 

 vine, and bears a berry from which the oil is extracted. 

 This has medicinal qualities, and was used anciently for 

 niedical purposes; but its main employment has always been 

 as a lamp oil of a coarse kind. According to Strabo, the 

 common people in Egypt applied it also to the anointment 

 of their persons. 



Ml/ own ohscrvations of the Castor Oil Plant in Equpt. — The 

 cultivation of the castor oil plant along the banks of the 

 Nile, alike in Upper Egypt as well as in Nubia, is in fact 

 quite as much an every-day sight to the modern traveller as- 

 in the days of Herodotus 4G0 B.C. However narrow the strip 

 of cultivated land along the banks of the Nubian Nile may 

 be, and all unite in testimony to its very limited dimensions 

 for the most part, room must be found not only for the growth 

 of lentils, lupins, and such like, but also for the inevitable 

 castor oil Avitbin the scanty plot of ground. With this 

 nauseous fluid the Nubians of to-day just as the Egyptians in 

 the marshes of old steep their raven tresses, and plaster their 

 copper- coloured complexions till their locks as Avell as their 

 naked bodies are glistening all over Avitli, as Avell as strongly 

 redolent of, the compound. In my swovk^ Nine Hundred Miles 

 up the Nile, p. 176, the folloAving passage occurs : " Until we 

 emerge in the village of IMahattah, prettily situated in groves 

 of date and doni palms, as well as sycamore figs, where the 

 little SAvarthy Nubian children pop their heads OA^er the clay 



