60 Introductory View of the 
general. The Chinese merchants, when they go out to sea 
provide themselves with four bamboos, whens being pinced 
crosswise, so as to leave a jes space in the middle, are 
slipped over the head, and made fast to the waist with acord; 
and by this simple apparatus they msure their safety in case 
of wreck. 
We will conclude our sketch of this valuable order with 
two genera of peculiar interest. That which many consider 
as the finest-flavoured of all known fruits, the beautiful, fra- 
grant, and delicious pine-apple, is one of a large genus, 
Bama (irom Bromel, a Swedish botanist), of which some 
of the species yield a pure water, more grateful, perhaps, 
under certain circumstances, than the pine-apple (Bromelia 
Ananas) itself. Of the Corypha (from a Greek word signifying 
the summit, in reference to its frondescence) there is but one 
species, the fan-palm (C. umbraculifera), an East Indian tree, 
with a tall straight stem, bearing at the top ten or a dozen leaves, 
upwards of 18 ft. in length, and 12 in breadth. One leaf will 
shelter twenty persons : when dry, they fold like a fan; and it 
is not unusual for persons who are travelling, to carry one divi- 
sion of a leaf by way of parasol. Cottages are roofed, and 
tents made with them. They supply the place of writing 
paper; and, in times of scarcity, the pith within the trunk of 
the tree is made into bread. 
The second order of this class is at once rich and poor ; 
poor in number, but rich in quality : it contains but one genus 
of very considerable importance, but that one is a host in itself. 
I speak of rice (Oryza sativa), an Ethiopian plant, upon the 
seed of which many of the inhabitants of the East almost 
entirely subsist. Its grow th is very similar to that of the 
grasses, differing only in the number of stamens. In cultiva- 
tion, like most dry plants, it requires a large portion of water ; 
it is threshed, beaten, or scalded, to élear: it from the ies 
before it is brought into this country. It has been observed 
that, in a scarcity of corn, rice may be in part substituted for 
it in the making ‘of bread; but the scarcity must be very great, 
to make that an economical expedient in this country, where éhé 
rice sells sohigh. Itis said to have been successfully cultivated in 
Scotland ; and could it be naturalised to this countr y, so as to be 
raised in the fenny lands, which cannot be made to produce 
corn, it might, perhaps, be cheap enough to become a real 
blessing to “the labouring classes, for it is undoubtedly very 
nutritious ; but, at ‘present, it is rather an article of luxury 
than of economy for them. In the East, a strong intoxicating 
spirit is obtained from this grain, there called paddy ; whence 
