24 
BAMBOO CANE. 
The Bamboo, is one of those surprising Tropical Grasses, of 
which we have no parallel in Temperate Climes. An idea of the 
grandeur and beauty which these magnificent arborescent Grasses 
impose upon the face of their native country, may, perhaps, be 
best collected from the account of Capt. Basil Hall, who, after 
travelling during the night in a palanquin, from the bare Table 
land of Mysore, towards the hilly and thickly-wooded regions 
overhanging the Malabar country, awoke in the morning, when, 
says he, “ I found myself in the midst of one of the most curious 
* and magnificent scenes which my eyes had ever beheld. It 
appeared as if I were travelling among the clustered columns of 
some enormous and enchanted Gothic Cathedral, compared to 
. which the Minster of York, or the Cathedral at Winchester, 
would have seemed mere baby houses : the ground extended on 
all sides as smooth, and flat, and clear of underwood, as if the 
whole had been paved with grave stones. Erom this level 
surface rose on every hand, and as far as the eye could penetrate 
into the forest, immense symmetrical clusters of Bamboo, varying 
in diameter at their base, from six feet, to twenty or thirty, and 
even to twice that width, as I ascertained by actual measurement. 
For above eight or ten feet from the ground, each indivi¬ 
dual of these clusters, preserved a form nearly cylindrical, after 
which, it began gradually to swell outwards, assuming for 
itself a graceful curve and rising to the height, some of sixty, 
some of eighty, and some even of one hundred, feet in the 
air; the extreme end being at lines horizontal, or even drooping 
gently over, like the tips of the feathers in the Prince of Wales 
plume. The gorgeous clusters stood at the distance of from 
fifteen to twenty yards from one another, and being totally free 
from the interruption of brushwood, could be distinguished at a 
great distance, more than a mile, certainly, in every direction, 
forming, under the influence of an active imagination, naves and 
transeps, aisles and choirs, such as none but a Gothic architect 
ever dared to conceive. Overhead, the interlacing curves of the 
Bamboos constituted as complete a groined roof as that of Win¬ 
chester or Westminster, on a scale of grandeur far beyond the 
bold conception even of those wonderful artists, who devised that 
glorious school of architecture. 
“ On counting the separate Bamboos, in some of the smallest, 
and also in some of the largest clusters, I found the numbers to 
vary from twenty or thirty, to upwards of two hundred ; and the 
