CANE AND BAMBOO. 125 



having no marks of the thorns which grow on the 

 outside. 



Sumatra produces this plant very abundantly. 

 The Dutch were formerly the exclusive importers 

 of canes from that place into Europe, and we were 

 accustomed to purchase them from this people, who 

 studiously withheld all information concerning the 

 plant from which they were obtained, fearing lest 

 travellers should discover how plentifully they were 

 produced in the woods, and that others beside them- 

 selves should divest the cane of its thorny covering, 

 and appropriate it to useful purposes, without having 

 recourse to their intervention. 



Such a matter could not, however, long be kept 

 secret. As our mariners found their way to the 

 eastern islands, and different parts of the Indian 

 ocean, they became well acquainted with the cane 

 plant, and the great variety of uses to which it might 

 be applied. At Java as well as at Sumatra, at 

 Japan, Malacca, Siam, Pegu, and many other places, 

 the rattan was found in great abundance. The na- 

 tives of Java cut the cane into fine slips, which they 

 plat into beautiful mats to sit upon, manufacture 

 into strong and neat baskets, or twist into cordage. 

 With them it supplies the place of our string or 

 twine, for all their parcels are neatly tied up with 

 thin fibres of cane. The fruit it bears, which, when 

 ripe, is roundish, as large as hazel-nuts, and lies in 

 clusters, they sell in their markets as an article of 

 food. They sometimes suck out the pulp by way of 

 quenching their thirst, and at other times pickle the 

 fruit. Here,as at Sumatra, and indeed through- 

 out the eastern islands, vessels are furnished with 

 cables formed of cane twisted or platted. This sort 

 of cable was very extensively manufactured at Ma- 

 lacca. " Here," says Dampier, '* we made two new 

 cables of rattans, each of them four inches about. 



M 3 



