PAPER-SHRUB SANDAL-WOOD. 133 



of three different qualities. The best sort is retailed at the 

 rate of forty sheets for a current rupee, and wholesale at 

 eighty sheets. The worst sort, however, is of a much 

 smaller size, and retailed at a hundred and forty sheets, 

 and wholesale at a hundred and sixty or seventy for the 

 rupee. The following is the very simple process of manu- 

 facturing this paper :— After scraping off the outer surface 

 of the bark, what remains is boiled in fair water with a 

 small quantity of the ashes of the oak, — a most necessary 

 part of the ingredients, — which has the effect of cleaning 

 and whitening the stuff. After the boiling it is washed,, 

 and immediately beat to a pulp with small mallets on a 

 stone ; so that, when mixed up in a vat with the fairest 

 water, it has the appearance of flour and water. It is then 

 spread on moulds or frames made of common bamboo- 

 mats."* 



Daphne Gardneri, another new species with fragrant 

 flowers, described by Dr. Wallich, and native of the moun- 

 tains of Nepaul, also furnishes materials for making a very 

 superior kind of paper. 



SANTALACF,^. 



Few Indian productions are better known than the san- 

 dal-wood of commerce, — the product of a small tree, the 

 Santalum album of Linnsus. Highly prized, however, as 

 this fragrant wood is in Europe for various kinds of cabinet- 

 work and ornamental articles, it is equally esteemed by the 

 natives themselves. The best kind is brought from the 

 western coasts of India. When the tree becomes old, the 

 centre of the trunk acquires a yellow colour, great fra- 

 grance, and hardness, while the exterior part is less firm, 

 white, and without fragrance. Among the Hindoos it is 

 called chaiidana, and is frequently mentioned in their most 

 ancient books. An elegant Sanscrit stanza, says Sir Wil- 

 liam Jones, of which the following version is literally exact, 

 alludes to the popular belief that vinus {teaugsa according 

 to others), or bamboos as they are vulgarly called, oflen 

 take fire by the violence of their collision, and is addressed, 

 under the allegory of a sandal-tree, to a virtuous man 

 dwelling in a town inhabited by contending factions : — • 



* Asiatic Researches, vol. xiii. 

 Vol. III.— M 



