OILS AND VEGETABLE FAT. 283 
chased the other oil, on account of its greenish tinge 
and strange appearance. On being shown to others, a 
chemist, recognizing it as the bitter oil of India, pur- 
chased it at the rate of £60 per tun; and he must have 
made a good profit on it, as the article fetches as much 
as £90 per tun. The Dilo grows to the height of sixty 
feet, and the stem is from three to four feet in diameter, 
generally thickly crowded with epiphytal orchids and 
ferns. The dark oblong leaves form a magnificent crown, 
producing a dense shade; and when, during the flower- 
ing season, they are interspersed with numerous white 
flowers, the aspect of the whole tree is truly noble. 
The exudation from the stem is, according to Bennett, 
the Tacamahaca resin of commerce, used by Tahitians 
as a scent. Carpenters and cabinet-makers value the 
wood on account of its beautiful grain, hardness, and 
red tinge. Boats and canoes are built of it, and it is 
named with the Vesi (Afzelia bijuga, A. Gray) as the 
best timber produced in Fiji. In order to extract the 
oil, the round fruit is allowed to drop and the outer 
fleshy covering rot on the ground. The remaining por- 
tion, consisting of a shell somewhat of the consistency 
of that of a hen’s egg, and enclosing the kernel, is baked 
on hot stones, in the same way that Polynesian vegeta- 
bles and meat are. The shell is then broken, and the 
kernel pounded between stones. If the quantity be 
small, the macerated mass is placed in the fibres of the 
Vau (Paritium tiliaceum and tricuspis), and forced by 
the hand to yield up its oily contents; if large, a rude 
level press is constructed by placing a boom horizontally 
between two cocoa-nut trees, and appending to them per- 
