234 



HISTORY OF THE VEGETABLE KINGDOM. 



reed sparrow, and now and then the rnstling of 

 the high papyrus, and other aquatic plants, as 

 they were shaken by a breath of summer air, or 

 agitated by the fish gliding among their roots. 

 The papyri fringing the pool seemed literally to 

 float upon its tranquil waters, their principal 

 root, which is large and bulbous, running hori- 

 zontally at the surface of the stream, and long 

 slender filaments depending perpendicularly 

 from it, like so many little cables to keep it at 

 anchor. The shaft or stem proceeding from this 

 root was frequently ten feet high, without mea- 

 suring the flowing tuft in whicli it terminated. 

 From some of them which we cut down and 

 carried away with us, we easily made a sort of 

 paper, though I cannot say much of the quality 

 we produced, being hurried and without proper 

 implements. We were obliged to fasten the 

 strips together, to form one sheet, with gum, 

 which may have arisen from the Syracusan pa- 

 pyrus being deficient in the glutinous quality of 

 those of the Nile, or, which is at least as pro- 

 bable, from our not dissolving it properly, or not 

 giving the strata sufficient pressure. Some manu- 

 factured papyri we saw in the house of a gentle- 

 man of Syracuse were certainly infinitely supe- 

 rior to our own, though even those would have 

 been a poor substitute for our English ■ivriting 

 paper of the very worst quality. They were 

 specimens of the result obtained by an antiquary 

 called L. Cavalier Landolina, who, a good many 

 years before, had endeavoured to revive tlie an- 

 cient manufacture, confidently anticipating that 

 it would supplant paper, not only in Sicily, but 

 in all Europe. It may, however, be doubted, 

 whether paper produced from this substance, 

 even when the ancient art was in its perfection, 

 and the best papyri of the Nile employed, ever 

 equalled the paper we now produce from linen 

 rags in any one quality save in durability." 



The ancient Egyptians made their sheets of 

 prodigious length, though narrow. One of those 

 purchased by the Earl of Belmore, and unrolled 

 by his lordship, was fourteen feet long by one 

 foot broad. Belzoni had a papyrus twenty-three 

 feet long by one and a half broad. The quantity 

 of the papyrus used by the Egyptians in their fu- 

 neral operations alone must have been very great. 

 Those papyri now found in the ancient tombs, 

 and about the mummy caves in Egypt, are yet 

 in a wonderful state of preservation. The rolls 

 are always compressed. Sometimes their exte- 

 rior is ornamented with gilding, in which case 

 they are looked upon as of superior value. They 

 are generally thrust into the breast, or between 

 the knees of the mummy, and occasionally they 

 are inclosed in small wooden boxes, or purses. 

 In the museum of Naples there are not less than 

 1700 to 1800 MSS. papyri, which have been 

 dug from the ruins of Herculaneum, and yet 

 only a very small portion of this ancient city has 



yet been dug out of the mass of lava by which 

 it was overwhelmed. 



Several of the Junci are used for making mat- 

 ting and baskets. The buUrush of this country, 

 and the jtiHcus acutus, or sharp rush, are thus em- 

 ployed. In Holland, the sharp rush is planted 

 with great care on their sea embankments, to 

 prevent by its roots the action of the tides from 

 washing away the earth. These roots are nume- 

 rous, and strike very deep into the ground, and 

 mat themselves near the surface in such a man- 

 ner, as to hold the eai'th closely together, and 

 whenever they are presumed to be destroyed, 

 much assiduity is employed in replacing them. 

 When these rushes have attained their full height, 

 which is in summer, they are .cut down, tied 

 into bundles, dried, and conveyed to the town, 

 where they are wrought into baskets and other 

 useful articles. 



On the banks of the Maese in England this 

 rush attains the height of three or four feet; but 

 in general does not grow so lux\iriantly in this 

 country. As a substitute for it, the great cat's 

 tail, ti/pha latifolia, which grows abundantly in 

 all our swamps, and on the borders of our lakes, 

 has been used with success. The stem of this 

 plant is six feet long, its leaves about an inch in 

 breadth, and convex on one side. It is termi- 

 nated by a long cylindrical head, where the 

 flowers and seeds are formed, of a dark brown 

 colour, and five to six inches in length. The 

 young and succulent stems of this rush, which 

 grows in vast quantities in the swamps of Rus- 

 sia, are used by the Cossacks and Russian boors 

 as an ai'tiole of food, and, though mawkish and 

 insipid, are by them esteemed a luxury. 



Two of our common junci, the conglomeratus 

 and effusus, when the outer skin is peeled off, 

 are used for wicks in making what are called 

 rush-lights. We learn from Pliny, that the Ro- 

 mans applied the pith of various kinds of rushes 

 for similar purposes, and that they entered into 

 the composition of the torches and candles used 

 at their funeral ceremonies. 



In Japan, rush making is a trade extensively 

 followed. All the floors of their houses are cov- 

 ered with mats, which are of great beauty and 

 variety, and many of their household utensils are 

 fashioned out of the same materials. So late as 

 the days of Queen Elizabeth, our halls and pub- 

 lic places were strewed with loose rushes, so that 

 we then had not attained the ingenuity or re- 

 finement of those eastern nations. The Japanese 

 employ chiefly the juncus conglomeratus and ef- 

 fusus, hard and soft rush. Their mats are 

 formed of the soft rush, plaited very closety, and 

 the interstices afterwards filled up with rice 

 straw. These mats, which are at once the car- 

 pets and the only beds used by the Japanese, are 

 soft, elastic, and often tliree or four inches thick. 

 Some law appears to regulate the size of these 



