138 
there is no export. Such are some of the passages given by Sir 
James. During the Burma-Manipur Expedition of 1882, the 
writer was resident in the Kdbu valley for some two months and 
took every opportunity to study the tree and the methods 
employed in tapping it. The Manipuris put great value in the 
varnish, and employ it extensively in forming a sort of patent 
leather, the varnish being used as the enamel for their harness 
and belting leathers. Tbeir sword scabbards are also richly coated 
with the varnish, but curiously enough the bulk of the material 
produced in the forest on the Burmese side of the State is con- 
veyed into Burma. In no part of Manipur is the clever art of 
lacquering basket-ware practised, which is carried to such per- 
fection in Burma. 
The sap obtained from the tree is essentially therefore, a 
Burmese product, so far as British possessions are concerned. In 
the Forest Administration Reports repeated mention is made of it, 
among the minor forest products. It is exported mainly from Pegu, 
also the Northern and the Southern Circles. In the report for 
1900-01 mention is made of exports to the extent of 197,505 viss; 
in the following year th (X), and in 1902-03 was 
returned as brin- .mly i;.V.kmi vN>. These li-ur. s by no means, 
however, represent the total traffic, as they take no cognisance of 
production in private forests or of local consumption. There 
would appear to be no exports to India and practically none to 
foreign countries. 
Review of Existing Literature.-Fully two hundred years ago 
interest appears to have been first aroused in Europe in the 
materials used in Japanese and Chinese varnish. Shortly there- 
after also a few writers claimed the discovery of the selfsame 
material obtained from certain trees found in Vmeriea. ((.//'. irith 
Vluhends' Aim. lint. 1690, p. 45 et Phyto. L 145, /. 2, and 
Dillenius, Hart. K/tham, L7:-;2, r . :VM)). Kamipfer described fully 
both the plant from which the varnish was procured and the 
method of its preparation in Japan (Cf. Amain. Exot. 1712, /,/,. 19 1 -5 
»). The true varnish tree (and the varnish itself), he 
tells us, was known as > | there was a false kind 
known as Fast no hi. The former is Rhus vernicifera, a plant 
with which we are at present not concerned. Incidentally, 
Uowever, we obtain in the dissertations of Japanese varnish the 
farst suggestion of the existence of a Siamese and Burmese 
varnish and varnish tree. The Abbe Mazeas published in the 
1 nilosopnical Transactions for 1755 (p. 157) a brief account of 
rl >- Loxicodendn 
>l\e v.-*- - 
SnS^S»«?» 8am . e 'olume of the Transactions. 
)pinions of Ksempfer, Dil- 
BESS VMS? in ^^^ZLlSt^TtX 
Miller reviews the discoveries and opTnionYof^mpfe 
S^^fe 00 ^ and S^errard, more especially the 
36 (p. 86i 
wrote an article on " An Attempt to Ascertain the Tree 
na and Japan; also 
arrivedTt thl P ™P«?a?»-> in ,- and 
Smrferlw^T? 81 MiUer and others wh0 identified 
Kamipfers Japanese plant as being identical with the North 
