The value of the oil of this palm, as an article of commerce, is exemplified by the large annual imports, averaging more than 516,000 cwt. for many years past.
Our supplies of palm oil are almost wholly derived from the West Coast of Africa, of which it is the staple article of export.
Palm oil has the greatest specific gravity of any of the fixed vegetable oils. It is used principally in this country for making yellow soap. But the inhabitants of the Guinea coast employ it for the same purposes that we do butter.
The trade in palm oil has almost driven out the slave trade from the Bight of Benin, which was a few years ago one of its principal seats. The old slave traders at Whydah have generally gone into the palm oil trade, and are carrying it on to a very great extent. In August 1849, no less than twelve vessels were lying at that port taking in oil; whilst, only three years before, it was rare to see three vessels there at once, and of those in all probability two would be slavers.
This palm is called Maba by the natives about the Congo river. It is moneocious, which indeed Jacquin, by whom the genus was established, concluded it to be, although first described as diœcious by Gaertner, whose account has been adopted, probably without examination, by Schroder, Willdenow, and Persoon.
The average imports of this oil into Liverpool alone, have now been for some years upwards of 18,000 tons, worth nearly £800,000 sterling, and giving employment to upwards of 30,000 tons of shipping; thus proving that the natives who formerly exported their brethren as a matter of traffic, now find, at least, an equally profitable trade in the exportation of the vegetable products of their native soil.
Palm oil is produced by the nut of the tree, which grows in the greatest abundance throughout Western Africa. The demand for it, both in Europe and America, is daily increasing, and there is no doubt it will, ere long, become the most important article of African trade.
| IMPORTS INTO LIVERPOOL. | ||
| casks. | tons. | |
| 1835 | 28,500 | 9,500 |
| 1836 | 33,500 | 11,000 |
| 1837 | 26,000 | 9,900 |
| 1838 | 27,520 | 10,320 |
| 1839 | 36,500 | 14,300 |
| 1852 about | — | 23,500 |
In the colony of Liberia, I notice the manufacture of a new article of African production, which is called "Herring's Palm Kernel Oil or African Lard." It is thus spoken of in the newspapers of that Republic :—
We had been for a long time impressed with an idea that the oil contained in the kernel of the palm nut, was superior both in quality and appearance to that of palm oil, which is obtained from the exterior part.