144 VEGETABLE SUBSTANCES. 



houses: one side of their rooms is nothing but 

 windows of sashes covered with paper ; on the rest 

 of the walls which are of plaster they paste white 

 paper, by which means they preserve them clean and 

 smooth ; the ceiling also is made of frames covered 

 with paper, on which they draw divers ornaments. 

 If it has been justly said that the Chinese apartments 

 are adorned with that beautiful varnish which we 

 admire in Europe, it is also true that in the greatest 

 part of the houses there is nothing to be seen but 

 paper: the Chinese workmen have the art of pasting 

 it very neatly, and it is renewed every year*." 



We are informed by Mr. Barrow, that many old 

 people and children gain a livelihood by washing the 

 ink from useless written paper, which after it has 

 been cleansed is beaten up, boiled to a paste, and 

 re-manufactured into new sheets. Even the old ink 

 washed from these written papers is not lost, for the 

 economical and ingenious Chinese have a* method by 

 which they separate it from the water, after which it is 

 put aside and preserved for future use. We learn from 

 the same gentleman that the papermakers of China 

 produce sheets of such dimensions, that a single 

 one will cover the whole side of a moderate-sized 

 room f. 



The natives of Ceylon adopted a less artificial 

 paper, and plucked from one of their trees tablets 

 which have resisted for many ages the ravages of 

 time. These are the leaves of the mountain palm, 

 or Corypha umbraculifera, called by the Cingalese 

 the talipot-tree. It attains to a great height, and is 

 surmounted by many large palmated plaited leaves, 

 the lobes or divisions of which are very long, and 

 placed regularly round a long spiny foot-stalk, the 

 whole exactly resembling a large umbrella. 



* General History of China, vol. ii. 

 f Travels in China, p. 310. 



