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THE TROPICAL 
AGRICULTURIST. [April i, 1890. 
place by force of habit and being proverbially hard 
to dislodge. But Taviuni and Savusavu have done 
this, and Mr. Stephens and Mr. Barrett, respectively 
have practically, and by sheer skill, usurped the 
place once occupied by importations from ChiDa 
and have driven those out of the market. With 
more marked sucoess, even, have they vanquished 
the Indian teas sought to be introduced, and de- 
prived them of the footing once they bade fair to 
establish in our midst. This is the more note- 
worthy inasmuch as the Indian product is not 
unlike our own. So much more laudable the vic- 
tory ; so muoh more does it establish the fact 
that the Colony produces an article more congenial 
to the taste of the people ; so much more does it 
lend strength to the reasonable hope that Austra- 
lasia — whence those people come — where their 
taste was formed, and which is in such close 
contiguity to them, will not only eventually become 
the legitimate customers of a nearer neighbour but 
will contribute capital to aid the production. 
Fiji has attained the knowledge that her soil 
can grow tea of a character not to be surpassed. 
The number of those who possess the requisite 
practical knowledge may be Bmall ; but still there 
are some in our midst. Land and skill are here, 
therefore, beyond a question. Energy is certainly 
not wanting ; but — and here comes the rub, where 
is the capital. That must be found by oo-operation, 
and by means of operations conducted on the 
principle of central factories. Where capital can 
be found, no such organizations need exist ; but 
where it is absent, surely they may be formed by 
means of a little tact and expense and certainly 
with but little or no risk. Is there no one among 
the many whose land is lying idle and unproductive, 
to take this up practically and so to welcome for- 
tune in place of bowing to sterile poverty. — Fiji 
Times. 
MUSK SEED AND ESSENTIAL OIL. 
A lowcountry planter writes : — 
Some years ago I was growing the Hibiscus mos- 
chatus, of which I enclose a few seeds, and was always 
under the impression that an essential oil could be ex- 
tracted from the seed, but I was never able to get a 
sufficieut quantity to make the experiment. On read- 
ing an old Tropical Agriculturist tne other day I ob- 
served that a Continental firm (Schimmel & Co., Leipsic) 
had succeeded in obtaining an oil and were much inter- 
ested in this vegetable musk. Now what I want you 
kindly to help me in is, with regard to the present 
value of the seed or the oil; in former days it was sold as 
a seed under the head of " Grains d'ambrette." I 
believe you receive Schimmel & Co.'s Price Current, 
and if so I presume it will contain some reference to 
this seed or oil, as they are the parties who are chiefly 
interested. If you slightly bruise the enclosed seed you 
will perceive the odour of musk. In the days of hair 
powder it was used for imparting an odour of musk 
to the powder. As the animal musk is very expensive; 
Morris recommends the cultivation of this bush to the 
West Indian planters— but I fancy it might soon be 
overdone. 
1 was reading the other day a cutting I had made 
from the Observer some years ago (before the Tropical 
Agriculturist was started) about the pith-plant from 
wtiich the sun hats are made (Siuhalese Diya 
Siyainbala), and there is also reference to the jute 
plant which is grown so largely in India, and uuknown 
in Ceylon: it struck me that it would be an interesting 
article to reproduce in tiie Tropical Agriculturist." 
We referred this letter and the seed to Dr. 
Trimen, who kindly writes as follows : — 
The Musk-seeds sent are the produce of Hibiscus 
abelmoschus (Abdmosdius moschatus), a plant cultivated 
in moat tropical countries and occasionally found 
apparently wild in the lowcountry of Ceylon, where 
it bears tho same name, " kapu-kiniron," as the com- 
moner and more handsome species H. augulosus. Your 
correspondent. was supplied with seed from the Gardens 
a few years ago. 
In reply to his queries, I believe that there is no 
export of these seeds from India, but they are impor- 
ted to France from the W. Indies, chiefly from Mar- 
tinique, under the name of " graines d'ambrette " and 
used as a substitute for musk. They are state! to 
fetch about 6d per lb. at Mincing Lane- 
Tho seeds oo ctumioal analysis have been fou nd 
to contain a fixed oil and an odorous principle be- 
sides other ingredients. Messrs. Schimmel of Leipzig 
report that the fixed oil solidifies at 10° aud on distil- 
lation is partially decomposed, the distillate contain- 
ing free acetic aud a fatty acid. The odorous matter, 
according to M. Bonastie, is a light green fluid with 
strong odour of musk, and is not volatile. 
+ 
A Syphon Astonishing- the Natives is thus 
noticed in one of the Perak district reports : — " On 
the 5th I went to Selebin, Mr. Taylor's mine. Mr. 
Treloar, the manager, has got a syphon working, 
which draws water from a mine 20 feet deep to 
the pumping shaft, about 200 feet away. I believe 
this is the first time that this method of drawing 
water has been tried in Perak, and 1 think it would 
prove of great use to the Chinese, who frequently 
have a deep ditch connecting their mines to the 
pump shaft. When this sypnon was first tried at 
Selebin the Chinese could not make it out at all, 
and were greatly astonished to see water being 
pumped from a mine without the help of any 
mechanical force." 
The Obigin or 'Cacao.' — In a paper by the 
Rev. Prof. Skeat, read at a meeting of tne London 
Philological Society, on " The Language of Mexioo ; 
and Words of West-Indian Origin,'' the author 
says : — 
It has been already noted that, in formiug com- 
pound words, such a sound as tl is dropped, medially. 
Thus teo-calli, a temple, is for teotl-calli, lit. god- 
house. I see no way of accounting for out cacao except 
by help of this principle. 
Cacao is merely the Spanish spelling of the Mexican 
word ; nnd there is not, exactly, any such word in 
Mexican. The right word is cacahuatl or cacauatl, the 
name of the cacao-tree. Now when this word is com- 
pounded with atl, water, the compound becomes 
cacaua-atl, l. e., cacauatl-water, a drink made from 
cacao. Perhaps the Spaniards analysed this, in their 
own way, as represeating cacaua followed by atl, and 
thus evolved a form cacaua (Span, cacao), which had 
no existence in the original language. Indeed the 
peculiar form cacao suggests that they probably did 
even worse, and got their cacao out of the original 
word cacauatl itself, by assuming that atl meant 
water, and so might be dropped. Either way, they 
dropped an essential part of the word, and adopted 
only a part of it. 
It thus appears that the right word for cacao, in, 
Mexican, is cacauatl, which is a simple origiual word 
accorning to the above-named Dictionary. In Murray's 
Dictionary it is resolved into caca-uatl, explained by 
' eaca-tree.' The Mexican Dictionary recognises no uail, 
but gives the word for ' tree ' as quauitl, which in 
composition becomes quauh, whether it precede or 
succeyl, the word with which it is compounded. Ex- 
amples are : no-quauh. my stick (lit. my bit of tree) 
quauh -ticpac, upon a tree; so that I bave failed to 
verity this so tar. 
The word tor chocolate presents no difficulty. The 
Mexican word for 'chocolate' is chocolatl, explaiued 
as ' aliment fait, en portions egales, avec les graines 
de cacao et celles de l'arbre appele pochotV Cho- 
colatl cannot be further analysed ; it has no connection 
with cacao, as is usually so recklessly asserted. 
So that we ought to speak and write of the cul- 
tivation, prospects, &c of the ' cacahuatl ' or ' cacau- 
atl ' tree 1 This is worse than 'oaoutohouo.' 
