CORDAGE AND CLOTH OF MANILLA HEMP. 65 
be converted into an excellent quality of paper. Though the 
plant yielding this fibre is not indigenous in India, nor ex- 
tensively cultivated, it is yet extremely interesting, not only 
because it may easily be cultivated there, but because there 
are other species of the same genus which may be turned to 
the same useful account. 
The plant which yields Manilla Hemp is called Abaca’ by the 
natives of the Philippine Islands, who are said to apply the 
same name to its fibre. The plant is sometimes called a tree, 
but it is, in fact, only a large herbaceous plant, which belongs 
to the same genus, and is, in fact, a kind of plantain or 
banana, which is named Musa textilis by botanists. It was 
first called Musa sylvestris by Rumphius in his ‘ Herbarium 
Amboinense.’ It was thought to be a variety of M. troglo- 
ditarum by Blanco, but called Musa textilis by Don Luis Nee, 
ina memoir which has been translated into English, and pub- 
lished in the ‘Annals of Botany,’ vol. i; where there may also be 
seen another memoir, which was sent in French to Sir Joseph 
Banks. These have been republished in the ‘Trans. of the 
Agric. Soc. of India,’ vol. viii, p. 87, together with a transla- 
tion by Mr. Piddington, of Calcutta, of a notice by Father 
Blanco, in his ‘Flora de las Filipinas” In addition to these we 
have a notice in the first volume of the Trans. of the above 
Society, 1828, by Mr. Piddington himself, one of the gentlemen 
who escaped the massacre of the English at Amboyna. 
From these authors we learn that the Abaca is abundant in 
the volcanic region of the Philippine Islands, from Luzon, in 
the northern province of Camarines especially, to Mindanao; also 
in the neighbouring islands, even as far south as the Molucca 
Islands, that is,in Gilolo. Hence this species may be stated to 
extend from the Equator to nearly 20° of north latitude. It 
may, therefore, very probably be easily cultivated in other coun- 
1 The natives distinguish several varieties of the Abaca: 
1. Abaca brava (the wild Abaca), called Agotat by the Bicoles. 
2. Mountain Abaca, the fibres of which only serve for making ropes, that are 
ealled Agotég and Amoquid in the Bicol language. 
3. The Sagig of the Bisayas. 
4. The Laquis of the Bisayas, by whom the fibres of the original Abaca are called 
Lamét. Rumphius states that the Malay name is Pissang utan; that it is called in 
Amboyna, Kula abbal ; in Ternate, Fana; and in Mindanao, Coffo, as also the cloth 
made from it. He distinguishes the Mindanao kind from that of mealeay 
3) 
