99 



ON THE SOUECES OF THE "CHINA MATTING" 

 OF COMMEKCE. 



By H. F. Hance, Ph.D., F.L.S., Member of the Imperial Academy 

 Naturae Curiosorum, &c. 



The manufactm-e of matting is one of the most important indus- 

 trial occupations of Soutliern China. The foreign traveller arriving 

 on the coast is struck by the novel sight of large heavy-looking 

 trading junks and myriads of Hghter fishing craft, all furnished 

 with enormous mat sails ; and, if his destination be Canton, or any 

 of the ports situated on the many outlets of the vast delta of the 

 Canton Eiver, he will meet wherever he goes thousands of boats 

 engaged in traffic, all using sails made of the same material. In 

 addition to this, the main and most important use to which matting 

 is put, it is largely used for dollar-bags,^ bed-mats, bags for packing 

 salt, and as covering for the boxes in which tea, cassia, sugar- 

 candy and other articles are packed for exportation ; so that the 

 number of persons to whom this branch of industry affords 

 employment must be very large indeed. 



Some years since, I ascertained from my friend the Eev. E. H. 

 Graves, who has a mission station in the departmental city of 

 Shiu-hing (in the Court dialect Chao-ch'ing), on the West Eiver, 

 about seventy-five miles from Canton, that this is the chief seat both 

 of cultivation and manufacture of the plant furnishing the material 

 for the matting ; and he was so kind subsequently as to procure for 

 me the li\ing plant, and to give me the following memorandum 

 regarding it: — "This i3lant is known among the Chinese at 

 Shiu-hing as T '6, which is defined in Kang-hi's dictionary as ' an 

 aquatic grass used by the people of Southern China for making 

 mats.' In Canton, however, the matting made of this plant is known 

 only under the term P'6 or 'rush.' This latter Williams defines 

 as the cat's-tail rush, or Tyjyha.j- It seems to be used in Canton as 

 a generic rather than a sj)ecific term. It is cultivated almost 

 exclusively in Shiu-hing, especially in the country to the south of 

 the department city ; of late years, however, it has been introduced 

 into the Sz-ui district. It grows in poor soil, and though it gains 

 in height by manuring, it loses so much in strength as to be unfit for 

 making mats. It is grown in fields flooded with water, much as 

 rice. No care is requu-ed in the cultivation, as it propagates itself 

 by sprouts from the root ; it reaches a height of six or seven feet. 

 The rush is brought to Shiu-hing in large bundles, about one foot 



* Owing to the mischievous and (so far as the prevention of fraud is concerned) 

 really useless practice adopted by the Chinese of " chopping" dollars, or stamping 

 them Avith a steel die, by which they gradually get worn into holes, and ultimately 

 broken up, it is customary amongst mercantile firms to weigh these, a certain 

 number of taels (usually 71-7) in weight being reckoned as equal to 100 dollars, 

 and weights of broken silver dollars corresponding to 100 and 50 clean dollars 

 are usually put up in mat bags, ready for payment by the " shroff" or Chinese 

 accountant and treasurer of the establishment. 



t But no species of Ty^ha is known from Southern China, 



