No. 216.] 173 



the island of Ilocos, I learnt respecting the cloth of the Batan island, 

 that it is made from a plant named labnis or lapnis, as 1 have often 

 noticed a singular and unexpected coincidence in the names of plants 

 even of remote countries; I was led to suspect that the plant em- 

 ployed for the above named fabric, must be the napcBa, called also 

 lapnis in — 1 — (tagcjos,) and not the urtica nivea, (U tenacissima 

 Roxb.) it remains for further investigation to solve this doubt." 



We find on further investigation, that the plant grows abundant- 

 ly in the Shan, states; Col. Burney when resident at Ava, sent a 

 quantity of the fibre to the Agricultural Society, and mentioned that 

 the Shans use this material in manufacturing every kind of cordage, 

 and weaving a stout kind of cloth, of which they make bags, it is 

 called pan by these people; this information has since been fully 

 confirmed by a late traveller in that country, Mr. Landers, whose un- 

 timely death in the neighborhood of Zimmie, may be in the recol- 

 lection of our readers; that gentleman informs us, that though the 

 Shans possess several other fibrous yielding plants, they neglect them 

 entirely in favor of this particular description, which in consequence 

 of its great strength, they employ for every purpose; he moreover 

 mentioned that it can be and is frequently converted by them into 

 the finest sewing thread, and for other domestic uses. If the plant 

 is not indigenous to the Tenasserim provinces, its introduction 

 there from the Shan states is well worthy of attention, that it is com- 

 mon to Assam, (where it is known as the Rheea,) we have the au- 

 thority of Major Jenkins, who communicated the circumstance up- 

 wards of ten years ago, to the Agricultural Society, and forwarded 

 them specimens at the same time. From that officer's letter publish- 

 ed in the third volume of the transactions of the society, we learn 

 that it requires a very limited degree of cultivation in that province, 

 where it occupies highlands of little or no value. 



But coming more to the westward and nearer the presidency, we 

 learn from Buchanan's statistics of Deriagepore, that this nettle is 

 cultivated in that district, that the bark is used to make a kind of 

 hemp for fishermen's nets, and it being the strongest material that 

 can be procured, it is also used in making rope for tracking boats; 

 Buchanan adds that the native name is Kankhura, and that he has 

 not seen it anywhere due except in that district, but Roxburgh states 

 that it is also cultivated in Rungpore, where it goes by the same 

 nanae, from which it is not improbable that the plant is to be met 

 within other of the northern and eastern districts of Bensral. 



