32 THE FIBROUS GRASSES OF INDIA. 
Esparto by theSpaniards. Arundo arenaria isused in the Hebrides 
for many of the same purposes as Esparto is by the Spaniards. 
In India several of the indigenous grasses are employed for 
the same purposes as the above. Thus the Moonja of the 
natives (Saccharum Munja) is collected after the rainy 
season and kept for use, as it is employed in tying up their 
cattle at night and for ropes for their Persian wheels. It is 
said also to be one of the grasses employed for making tow- 
ropes by the boatmen about Benares. The Shur or Sara of 
Bengal (Saccharum Sara), or the Pen reed grass, Mr. Henley 
informs me is another species employed by the boatmen about 
Allahabad and Mirzapore, and esteemed as a tow-line for its 
strength and durability even when exposed to the action of 
water. It is said to be beaten into a rude fibre and then 
twisted into a rope. 
Besides the above, the sacred grass of the Hindoos, the dad or 
koosha of the Brahmins (Poa cynosuroides), is also made into 
rope in North-West India. Other species of Saccharum are 
used for thatching and for screens, and some for making 
writing-pens and for arrows. The fibres of the Khuskhus 
or Vetiveyr are more remarkable for their agreeable odour 
than for their tenacity, while the Bamboo, the most 
gigantic of grasses, might be enumerated with timbers rather 
than with fibres, though its split stems are often employed for 
making mats in India, and the young shoots for paper-making 
by the Chinese. Many others of the grasses might be converted 
into half-stuff for paper-makers, and have the great advantage 
of affording large quantities of a cheap material. 
The Nul or Nar of Bengal is described as being employed 
for making the mats known by the name of Durma, which 
are formed of the stalks split open. Dr. Stocks informs me 
that in Sindh the grass called Sur, which perhaps is Arundo 
karka, has its culms, sur jo kanee, made into chairs, and its 
flower-stalks beaten to form the fibres called moonyah. These 
are made into string or twine (moonyah jo naree), and into 
ropes (moonyah jo russa). 
While this sheet is passing through the press, I have been 
informed by Mr. Burns, of the Indus Flotilla, who has been 
several years in Sindh, that the boatmen of the Indus 
universally employ the Moonj (probably the above Saccharum 
