Chap. IV. 
VEGETABLE TALLOW. 
56 
sea-water with the aid of the sun alone, and do not 
saturate the soil as they do in Chusan ; but there the 
sea-water is perfectly clear. Amongst the Chusan group 
of islands the water is yellow and muddy, being rendered 
so by the large rivers which are pouring in their waters 
from the main land, and more particularly by the Yang- 
tse-kiang. 
For the following account of the Chinese method / 
of extracting the tallow from the seeds of the Stil-' 
lingia sebifera I am indebted to Dr. Rawes, of the 
Madras army, who was some time resident in the island 
of Chusan : — 
" The seeds are picked at the commencement of the 
cold weather, in November and December, when all the 
leaves have fallen from the trees, — this I saw at Sing- 
kong when out shooting in the Sah-hoo valley, close by 
our quarters through the village. The seeds are in the 
first place taken to the building where the process of 
making the tallow is carried on, and picked and sepa- 
rated from the stalks. They are then put into a wooden 
cylinder, open at the top, but with a perforated bottom. 
This is placed over an iron vessel (about the same 
diameter, or rather larger than the wooden cylinder, 
and about six or eight inches deep) containing water, by 
which means the seeds are well steamed, for the purpose 
of softening the tallow and causing it more readily to 
separate. The furnace I saw had four or five iron vessels 
in a row, was about three feet high, four or five feet broad, 
and eight or ten feet long. The fire was placed at one 
end and fed with the husk of the rice, dry grass, and 
such-like cheap materials, which make a great flame, and 
