4 Transactions. — Miscellaneous. 



the Pacific is unmistakable evidence of intercourse between 

 agricultural nations, and of the wide dissemination of culti- 

 vated plants at a very remote period. 



Throughout the warm regions of the Old World beaten or 

 felted bark cloth was formerly in general use, as cotton stuffs 

 are at present. Throughout the great chain of islands that 

 extends from Sumatra to the Hawaiian Archipelago it was, 

 during the last century, the principal article of clothing worn 

 by the inhabitants. '•'' Ellis found it in use amongst the natives 

 of Madagascar; and, prior to Arab invasions, excepting the 

 skins of animals, it was the only material with which the people 

 of Central Africa covered themselves.! The best description of 

 this African cloth, manufactured by the Uganda who occupied 

 the northern shores of the Victoria Nyanza, closely resembles 

 the tapa cloth of Polynesia. Grooved mallets, similar to 

 those used in the Pacific islands, and which, like them, im- 

 parted to the fabric a corded appearance, w^ere employed in 

 its preparation.:!; It is worthy of remark that the Uganda 

 who navigate the great lake use outrigger canoes, § and that 

 scattered throughout their country and the adjoining Unzoro 

 State are many large dragon-trees, the genus Dracana to 

 which they belong being, according to some authorities, || origi- 

 nally confined to the Malay and Polynesian regions. 



The manufacture of felted bark cloth is evidently a more 

 primitive art than w'eaving, for, wherever the loom is known, 

 bark cloth is only found amongst the rudest sections of the 

 population ; this is the case in Madagascar, though the woven 

 fabrics are of a very rude description. On the African Con- 

 tinent and in Polynesia, where bark cloth was the principle 

 clothing material, spinning and weaving were unknown, 

 though cotton and other fibrous plants are indigenous. 



Taeo, or Colocasia anim esculentum, has been cultivated in 

 Hindostan for more than four thousand years. As the species 

 readily escapes from cultivation, it is impossible to determine 

 the exact habitat of the wild stock ; we are therefore unable 

 to decide whether the species belonged originally to the Malay 

 Islands, and was there brought into cultivation, or whether it 

 was introduced as a cultivated plant. Throughout the Pacific 

 region, wherever the inhabitants were agriculturists, when 

 Europeans first came in contact with them the Colocasia was 

 one of the most important esculents ; the correspondence of 

 the Malay names tallus, talias, tales, or taloes with the Poly- 

 nesian clalo, taro, and talo leaves little room for doubt that it 



* "Madagascar." Samuel Pusfield Oliver. 



t " Artes Africanae." Dr. G. Schweinfurth. 



\ " Albert N'yanza." Sir S. Baker. 



§ " Emin Pasha in Central Africa." 



II Personal narrative of travels. Humboldt and Bonpland. 



