The process of boiling is more expeditious. The nuts are boiled or steamed until the firmly coagulated fibre shows signs of yielding; then they are placed in an old canoe or large mortar and pounded with wooden pestles. In both processes, whether by fermentation or by boiling, the oily fibre separates itself from the hard inner “stone.” The fibre, which is by this time a tangled mass of yellow and brown, is then taken and squeezed, sometimes with the aid of water, through a woven press and a stream of golden liquid results. Sometimes loads of the oily fibre are thrown pell-mell into a large canoe half filled with water in which the children delight to paddle, causing the oil to rise to the surface, when the elders skim it from the top and carry it in earthenware pots for boiling and straining before sending it on its way to the market and the European consumer. [Sidenote: OIL AND KERNEL TRADE] The oil, however, is but one exportable product of the palm tree; the value of the inner kernel may be gathered from the fact that over four million pounds’ worth of palm kernels are sent to Europe every year. This kernel is encased in an extremely hard shell, which varies so much in size that until quite recently there was no satisfactory “stone” cracking machinery in Africa. There are now several machines on the market, but the old grey-haired lady of the West African kraal, with her primitive upper and nether grind stones, still makes by far the most reliable “cracker.” [Illustration: “WALKING” UP TO GATHER FRUIT. WEAVER BIRDS’ NESTS ON THE PALM FRONDS.] [Illustration: HEADS OF OIL PALM FRUIT.] At Victoria, in German Cameroons, we saw an elaborate set of machinery for dealing in turn with the oily fibrous pericarp of the nut, and later, extracting the kernel from the inner stone. The latter process was that of a general crushing, then throwing the entire mass into a brine bath and so separating the shells from the kernels, which were then taken out and dried in the sun. This process, while being infinitely more expeditious, has the obvious drawback that a large proportion of the kernels are so bruised and broken that it entails a considerable wastage of oil. THE PALM IN TONNAGE AND IN FIGURES STERLING. Exports in round figures for the year 1911— OIL. KERNELS. Tons. Values. Tons. Values. French Senegal 1 36 1,418 14,300 ” Guinea 53 1,300 4,500 36,600 ” Ivory Coast 5,800 107,100 5,340 45,500 ” Dahomey 14,400 254,100 34,200 400,000 ” Congo 125 3,100 570 7,600