MATTING AND BASKET-MAKING, 



119 



Soft Rush Juncus effusus. 



yellow colour, it is very common to bleach the rushes 

 in the sun. Some sumptuary law probably regulates 

 the size of these mats, for Thunberg says, that through- 

 out the country he found them of precisely the same 

 dimensions, viz. " two yards long and one broad, 

 with a narrow blue or black border." It was only 

 in the emperor's palace, at Jeddo, that the traveller 

 saw mats larger than these. 



Of the same rushes they make lighter matting, 

 which serves as blinds to their windows, and protects 

 from the rain the thin transparent paper with which 

 the windows are furnished instead of glass. 



