32 Vegetable Materals for Cordage, §e. 
out,’) then “served,” and finally covered with the Indian dubbing 
called dammer. ‘Thus protected, rigging will last for years. Euro- 
pean and American ships hire coir cables when in an Indian port, to 
save their own. ‘The article (coir) constitutes a grand staple of In- 
dia, the value of which is considerable. 
4, Agave Americana.—While I was engaged in examining a coil of 
Manilla rope, in the course of my inquiries about that article, my at- 
tention was drawn to another parcel of glossy white cordage, which 
I was informed by the ship chandler, had been made from Sisal 
hemp, and was much used. Of the vegetable producing it, and the 
reason of the specific name attached to the raw material, he knew as 
little, as respecting the Manilla hemp, which he had been working 
up for several years. But by continued inquiry, I heard of the 
merchant who first introduced the article into Philadelphia, and from 
him I learnt, that having been told by a mariner of the rope made 
from the prepared fibre in Yucatan, he imported a cargo of it in the 
year 1825, from Sisal, referring me to my old acquaintance: Capt. 
Patrick Hayes, for further information, he having attended to the pro- 
cess of preparing the article for sale in Yucatan, and seen the plants in 
the open lot before the Pennsylvania hospital! Upon visiting that insti 
tution with Capt. H., and entering the green house, he pointed out the 
plant, which I immediately recognised as the well known Agave Amer 
icana—that eminently useful plant to the people of the countries m 
which it is native, and whose distant periods of flowering when remov- 
ed therefrom, have given rise to a popular error, which will require ages ) 
to remove.* According to my informant, the preparation is extreme 
ly simple. By means of two sharp corners made by hollowing out 
the ends of a wooden tool like a flat ruler, the fleshy leaves are slit 
into two or three longitudinal strips, and the pulpy substance being — 
scraped off, the fibrous material appears, which is then shaken loose — 
tied in a knot, and when dried in the sun, is put up in bales for ex | 
' 
? 
~"* T allude to the idle story of the ptasi (the popular name of which is the Amer 
. : an , the seat of the late Wm. Hamilton, which grew from a sucker of on? 
al wished thirty six years before, (1778) at Springetsbur Bush-Hill) both 
iin. 3 ¥> ¢ 
