The aborigines are often seen about Sydney; but to me they appear, probably from their vicious habits, a far worse-looking race than those I had seen in the interior. The _celebrated_ King Bungaree had recently ended his mortal career, as well as most of his tribe, none of them ever having been induced to settle and cultivate the soil for subsistence. It is related, that in the time of the government of General Macquarie there was an attempt made, by distributing seeds among them, to induce the natives to cultivate the ground: among the packets of seed sent for distribution were some which contained fish-hooks; these, together with the seeds, were given by the governor to the sable monarch, King Bungaree. Some time after the governor inquired of him whether the seeds had yet come up—“Oh berry well, berry well,” exclaimed Bungaree, “all make come up berry well, except dem fish-hooks, them no come up yet.” The castor oil shrub (_Ricinus communis_) abounds in the colony both in a wild and cultivated state, thriving even in the most arid soils; yet the oil is still imported and sold in the colony at a high price, when by very little attention any quantity could be expressed from the seeds, not only for medicinal, but likewise for domestic purposes; such as burning in lamps; for which latter purpose it is used in some parts of South America, as well as by the Javanese and others. There are two methods employed to extract the oil—coction and expression; the first is performed by tying the seeds, previously decorticated and bruised, in a bag, and then suspending in boiling water until all the oil is extracted, and, rising to the surface of the water, is skimmed off. This mode of preparation is still preferred by many of the West Indian practitioners; but as the oil is apt to get rancid when thus prepared, it is now obtained, both at home and abroad, by subjecting the seeds to the press in the same manner as the almond. The oil obtained is equal to one-fourth of the weight of the seeds employed. The acrid principle is contained in the cotyledons, and not in the embryon, nor in the testa. It is of a volatile nature. Good expressed castor oil is nearly inodorous and insipid; but the best leaves a slight sensation of acrimony in the throat after it is swallowed. It is thick, viscid, transparent, and colourless, or of a pale straw colour: that which is obtained by coction has a brownish hue; and both kinds, when they become rancid, thicken, deepen in colour to reddish brown, and acquire a hot, nauseous taste. It has all the chemical characters of the other expressed oils, except that it is heavier, and is very soluble in alcohol, and also in sulphuric ether.[127]