THE BAMBOO. 91 



which he has to pay so high a price for in the Bazaars. 

 Given the necessary faith the results should be equal! 



\''ery instructive observations may be made on the 

 ^'oung, conelike shoots of the Bamboo when the\' are 

 pushing up through the earth in spring. The^- are as 

 thick as a man's arm, and closelv covered with sheath- 

 like leaves. Water is exuded between these sheaths, bv 

 which means the surrounding earth is moistened and 

 softened, and the\' develop so rapidh' that one is al- 

 most able to observe the process with the naked eye. 

 So that the saying becomes a reality — and ■n'Ou can 

 see grass grow ! Under specialh' favourable circum- 

 stances a Bamboo shoot will grow half a ^-ard in one 

 da\', thus attaining its full height of 65 feet, or more, in 

 a very short time. A luxuriant thicket of Bamboos is 

 one of the most remarkable sights in the ^'egetable World ; 

 but these plants must be seen in the tropics to realise 

 their importance as a feature in the landscape. 



According to the geographer Richter's valuable infor- 

 mation and the no less important researches of the botanist 

 Ferdinand Cohn, it seems highly probable that the sub- 

 stance called b\' the ancients "Saccharum", was not Cane 

 Sugar but Tabashir. Bopp tells us that the Sanscrit 

 root "carkara" meant, not anything sweel, but something 

 hard and brittle. In ancient India Tabashir was known 

 as "Sakkar Nambu" or Bamboo Stone. M'hen the crys- 

 talline Cane Sugar was introduced later the Arabs 

 transferred this word to it because of its resemblance to 

 Tabashir. Edmund O. von Lippmann, in his most 

 thorough and exhaustive "Geschichte des Zuckers", also 



