25 
height, generally, from sixty to one hundred feet from the ground 
at the point of intersection of the curves overhead. Most of the 
Bamboos were somewhat thicker than a man’s thigh at the 
ground, where, as I have before said, they are clustered so close 
as to be almost in contact. They then taper off very gradually 
to the extreme end, where the point is not thicker than a quill. 
“ There occurs a joint at about every foot and a half; distin¬ 
guished not only by a flat ring, or fillet, but by a set of small 
branches, eight or ten feet long, striking out at right angles to 
the main Bamboo. These minor shoots are again divided into 
joints; from which, other series of shoots, still more minute, 
are thrown out, and so on for many successions, the last ahvays 
terminating in a sharp-pointed narrow leaf, two or three inches 
long, and half an inch wude in the middle, not unlike a large 
Tea leaf, wdien spread out. As each Bamboo, of the hundred or 
more forming the cluster, sends out shoots from every joint, and 
as all the joints of these subordinate plants do the same, a com¬ 
pact mass is formed by these innumerable little branches, which 
cross one another at every possible angle. If a person were to 
fill a hat full of pins and needles, and shake them about for some 
minutes, it might give a notion of the inextricable confusion 
wdiich is presented to the eye in looking into one of these clustered 
columns of Bamboos. It is only at the top, where the bend 
takes place, that the foliage has full room to play, or where the 
tapering arms of this magnificent plant form, by their meeting 
and ctossing, a complete system of pointed arches. 
“ ^Vhat surprised me at first, very much, and greatly puzzled 
me, too, w'as to observe that, notwithstanding the multitude of 
lateral shoots from each of the main Bamboos, and from all the 
subordinate branches, not a single trace of displacement, or the 
slightest obstruction to the growth of any branch, could be 
detected. Every person must have heard of the astonishing 
rapidity of growth in the Bamboo: it is said, indeed, that in one 
season it starts up to its whole length, I do not know if this be 
true, but am quite certain that if one of the main Bamboos were 
to spring from the ground in the centre, or even near the sides 
of the cluster, and that from its points there were, at the same 
time, to sprout the lateral branches I have described, it w’ould be 
impossible for the main stem to force its way through the ob¬ 
structions presented by the network, formed by the little branches 
growing from the joints of the other Bamboos in the cluster.” 
Captain Hall then goes on to state how he thinks we can 
perceive “ the w^ay in wdiich Nature manages this difficult affair. 
When the Bamboo first springs out of the ground, it is about as 
