STRENGTH AND DURABILITY OF KJOO. 101 
like fibres, which are attached to the thinner fibres by cellular 
tissue. These stiff fibres are employed in Sumatra as styles for 
writing with on the leaves of other Palms, &c., as mentioned 
both by Marsden and Bennett. 
These fibres are further described as stronger, more durable, 
but less pliant and elastic than those of the Coir; but they 
resist decay, and are therefore more fit for cables and standing 
rigging, but less fit for running rigging. “ The native shipping 
of all kinds are entirely equipped with the cordage of the 
Gomuto, and the largest European shipping in the Indies find 
the advantage of using cables of it. It undergoes no prepara- 
tion but that of spinning and twisting,—no material similar to 
our tar or pitch, indispensable to the preservation of hempen 
cordage, being necessary with a substance that, in a remarkable 
degree, possesses the quality of resisting alternations of heat 
and moisture. The best Gomuto is the produce of the islands 
farthest east, as Amboyna and the other Spice Islands. That 
of Java has a coarse ligneous fibre; the produce of Matura is 
better. Gomuto is generally sold in twisted shreds or yarns, 
often as low as a Spanish dollar a picul, and seldom above two ; 
which last price is no more than one sixth part of the price of 
Russia hemp in the London market. Were European ingenuity 
applied to the improvement of this material, there can be little 
doubt but it might be rendered more extensively useful.” 
Milburn, again, in his ‘Oriental Commerce,’ mentions the 
Ejoo as of all vegetable substances the least subject to decay, 
and that it is manufactured into cables, and the small cordage 
of most of the Malay vessels made of it: “it is equally elastic 
with coir, but much more serviceable, and floats on the surface 
of the water.” These fibres are universally employed, in the 
countries where the trees are indigenous, for making cordage 
for their nets and seines, as well as for the rigging of their 
vessels, as also cables. These are described by all as remarka.- 
ble for their tenacity and durability, and as not undergoing 
any change by exposure to wet, not even when stowed away in 
a wet state. In some experiments made by Dr. Roxburgh, 
some thickish cord bore 96 lb., and some smaller 79 ]b.; while 
coir of the same size bore only 87 lb. and 60 Jb. respectively. 
Besides the above horsehair-like fibres, there is at the base of 
the leaves a fine woolly material (baree), much employed in. 
