162 RATTANS AND THEIR USES. 



now being pulled through as long as it continues of an equal size, is by this 

 operation neatly and readily freed from its epidermis. When the wood 

 cutter has obtained by this means from 300 to 400 rattans — being as many 

 as an individual can conveniently carry in their moist and undried state — 

 he sits down and ties them up in bundles, each rattan being doubled 

 before being thus tied up. After drying, they are fit for the market with- 

 out further preparation. From this account of the small labour expended 

 in bringing them to market, they can be sold at a very cheap rate. The 

 natives always vend them by tale ; but the European residents and the 

 Chinese sell them by weight, counting by piculs. In India and this coun- 

 try they are sold by tale. The species of Calamus, furnishing the rattans 

 of commerce, abound in the islands of the Indian Archipelago, as well as 

 in the Malayan Peninsula. The principal places of production are — 

 Banjarmassing, Pontianak, Cotie, Sarawak, and Sambas, in Borneo ; 

 Jambi, in Sumatra ; Padang, on the west coast of Sumatra ; and Perak 

 (Malayan Peninsula). The Bugis traders of Borneo barter them from the 

 natives for various European and Chinese manufactures. The canes are 

 then taken by these traders to Batavia, Sourabaya, Singapore, Penang, and 

 other ports, where they are purchased by European merchants, and by 

 them shipped principally to London and Liverpool. The majority of those 

 produced at Banjarmassing and Cotie are bought by the Dutch East India 

 Company, and find their way to Holland. Those produced at Perak are 

 sent to Penang, and reshipped to London. 



The whole of the rivers of the north of Borneo, for miles up, abound in 

 rattans. A writer who had visited the coasts stated not long ago that four 

 thousand tons might be easily cut down every year without exhausting it, 

 and sent by junks to China and Singapore. Two or three vessels of the 

 largest size might annually lade with them in Maludu Bay. The inhabi- 

 tants would contract to cut them down for a trifle. A few species are found 

 within the Madras territories, but in India they chiefly abound in the forests 

 of the districts of Chittagong, Silhet, and Assam, whence they extend 

 along the foot of the Himalayas as far north as the Deyra Boon, where a 

 species is found which the late Mr. Griffith named C. Royleanus, and he 

 applied the name of C. Roxburgkii to the plant which Dr. Roxburgh called 

 C. Rotang, common in Bengal and on the Coromandel coast. Both are 

 called bet, and used for all the ordinary purposes of cane, as are C. tenuis, 

 of Assam, C. gracilis, extensus, and others. These canes are abundant in all 

 the moist tropical parts of the East, both on the Continent and in the 

 islands. 



At the Paris Exhibition of 1855 two specimens of rattans (Calamus verus) 

 were shown by Mr. Layard, measuring 270 feet and 230 feet respectively. 

 The cable cane (C. rudentuni), a native of the East Indies, Cochin China, 

 and the Moluccas, grows sometimes to the length of 500 feet. In the 

 Eastern Archipelago, the native, too indolent to cultivate the soil, searches 

 the forest for rattans, canes, barks, gums, and materials for mats, roofs, 

 baskets, and receptacles of various kinds. The East Indian rattans imported 



