there, the whole yield would be ruined, and
rendered useless save for the coarsest purposes
of manufacture. When the exact moment has
arrived between loosening and fermentation, the
olives are put into bulrush bags, called cabas,
and crushed very gently under a screw. The
pale, greenish-yellow, limpid, sweet, inodorous
liquid that runs from this first gentle squeeze, is
called Virgin Oil, and is the oil used in the
watch trade, being a kind of idealisation of oil,
not clogging the finest wheels; but happy the
gourmand who can go shares with the
watchmakers, and command fresh virgin oil for his
kitchen! Nothing in the world is such a
delicious cooking medium; and the cordon bleu
who can get this, dispenses with all forms of
lard or butter, until the pale, greenish-yellow
turns to a more decided gold, deepening and
deepening till it gets the awful hue and flavour
known as rancid. When the virgin oil has
run out, the half-crushed olives are taken out
of the bags, to be put in again with boiling
water, and again pressed, a little harder under
the screw this time. The oil and water run out
together; and, when cold, the oil floats on the
top, and is skimmed off with flat ladles: "lever
l'huile" the technical term. This is Ordinary
Oil, and very good for the table, too, when perfectly
fresh, but inclined to become rancid sooner
than the virgin. After the skimming there
is still some oil left in the water, which is led
away into a large cistern or reservoir, called
l'enfer, where it remains for many days, the oil
gradually collecting on the top. Then the water
is drawn off from below, leaving the oil, which
is known as l'huile d'enfer, or Lamp Oil.
Another yield called l'huile fermenté, is oil got
from, olives in a state of fermentation; but this
is rarely employed, and the oil is never met with
in trade. Only the virgin oil and the ordinary
oil are sent abroad; l'huile d'enfer and the
horrible fermented stuff are mercifully kept at home.

Though Spain has such magnificent fruit—the
Spanish olives are much larger than the French—
she makes but inferior oil, owing to the rudeness
and poverty of her machinery, whereby the
olives ferment before they can be crushed, and
thus the oil is never quite sweet or pure, and soon
turns violently rancid. Which is the reason why
that terrible smell and taste of bad oil, mingled
with the smell and taste of garlic, destroys every
meal cooked in Spain; while in Italy you have
oil cookery without any of these disagreeable
results. Italian oil is certainly first rate, though
the machinery employed is not much superior to
the Spanish. As for the Gallipoli oil, the
manufacture of that is of rudest and simplest
description. The Neapolitan women and
children pick up the ripe fruit as it falls from the
tree, fling the olives into a mill and crush them
up body and bones, skin and kernel together;
whence streams forth an oil, according to the
law of olive nature. They ladle this oil into
skins—sheep, goat, kid, bullock, anything handy
—and send it to the seaport of Gallipoli, to be
clarified in the huge cisterns cut in the rock on
which the town is built; and to be finally shipped
off to England and elsewhere, under the name
of Gallipoli oil; but by no means to be attempted
for food, for frying fish, or for summer salads.

Almond oil is got by squeezing bitter almonds,
which are cheaper than, and as good as, the sweet,
between cold metal plates. This is the first
quality; the second is got by pressing them again
between heated metal plates, the heat acting as
a further power of expression; and the result of
both processes is a sweet-tasted and inodorous
oil. When an almond-scented oil is needed,
then the almonds are first blanched in hot water,
and carefully dried again previous to being
pressed; by which process the oil retains the
odorous particles, and is the "oil of bitter
almonds" we all know of. If we want the
essential oil of almonds, which is quite another
thing, the marc or bitter-almond cake left by
the first process—the almonds with all the bland
oil expressed—is distilled with water, and the
essential oil passes up with the steam and
condenses in the worm. Cocoa-nut oil is obtained
by heat, pressure, and water, all together. It
soon turns rancid, and is principally used here
for candles and soap; but employ what
perfumes we will in the latter, the horrible smell
of the cocoa-nut oil survives and overpowers
everything, and when the rose and the almond
and the lavender and the patchouli have all
vanished from our hands, cocoa-nut oil remains.
The Indians and Cinghalese use this oil largely
as a pomade, but we cannot do so, unless we
become indifferent to evil smells as a national
characteristic. Palm oil is that gold-coloured
"butter" which one puts into home-made
pomades, more as a colouring agent than anything
else, seeing that it soon turns rancid, and so
spoils the whole making. It is said that palm
oil, when fresh, has the odour of violets, but I
suppose I have never met with it perfectly fresh,
as this is a fact quite undiscovered by me. It
is principally used in making candles, when it is
bleached, unless people chance to prefer them
of a muddy yellow instead of white; and that
sickening-looking stuff which the railway porters
dab into the wheel-boxes to keep them from
taking fire, is palm oil and tallow, mixed with a
little soda lye.

We all know something about colza oil; those
of us at least who use moderator lamps; but we
do not all get it quite pure as it comes from
the seeds of that special brassica devoted to its
expression. Colza oil was put on its trial in
1845, when Faraday reported on its excellences
and blemishes, on behalf of the Trinity House,
interested in getting the best light at the least
cost, and, until then, burning sperm in all its
lighthouses. This report was decidedly favourable
to colza; the light being full one and a
half as compared with sperm oil, and the cost
three and sixpence a gallon as against six and
fourpence for the sperm. The price has risen
since then, unfortunately, being now, for the ill
luck of the consumers, four and ninepence or
five shillings the gallon, and decidedly not better
than in the early days; indeed, not so good,
because now adulterated, which it was not then.