RATTANS AND THEIR USES. 163 



from Calcutta are glossy, while those from the Eastern Archipelago are 

 not glossy. 



For cane work, rattans should be chosen long, of a bright pale yellow 

 colour, well glazed, and of a small size, not brittle or subject to break. 

 They are purchased by the 100 rattans. In China they are sold by the 

 picul (133^ lbs.), which contains from nine to twelve bundles. Such as 

 are black or dark coloured, that snap short on their being bent, should be 

 rejected. The imports of rattans into this country, it will be seen from the 

 statistics appended, vary — ranging from one to one and three-quarter 

 million bundles annually, but are on the increase. The Dutch Trading- 

 Society import about 400,000 bundles annually from Java and the Indian 

 Islands, while about half as many more are imported and sold in Holland 

 by private merchants. 



In Japan all sorts of basket woi'k are made of split cane, and even 

 cabinets with drawers. Cane is also platted or twisted into cordage, and 

 slender fibres are made to answer the ordinary purposes of twine. It 

 is stated that in China, as also in Java and Sumatra, and indeed throughout 

 the Eastern Islands, vessels are furnished with cables formed of canes 

 twisted or platted. The species employed for this purpose is probably the 

 Calamus rudentum, of Loureiro, which this author describes as being twisted 

 into ropes in these Eastern regions, and employed, among other things, for 

 dragging great weights, and for binding untamed elephants. So Dampier 

 says : " Here we made two new cables of rattans, each of them four inches 

 about. Our Captain bought the rattans, and hired a Chinese to work them, 

 who was very expert in making such wooden cables. These cables I found 

 serviceable enough after, in mooring the vessel with either of them ; for 

 when I carried out the anchor, the cable being thrown out after me, swam 

 like cork in the sea, so that I could see when it was tight — which we cannot 

 so well discern in our hempen cables, whose weight sinks them down ; nor 

 can we carry them out by placing two or three boats at some distance 

 asunder, to buoy up the cable, while the long boat rows out the anchor." 

 The tow-ropes mentioned by Marco Polo, as used by the Chinese for 

 tracking their vessels on their numerous rivers and canals, seem also to 

 have been made of cane — and not of bamboo, as sometimes stated — as they 

 were split in their whole length of about thirty feet, and then twisted 

 together into strong ropes, some hundred feet in length. 



Mr. G-. Bennett says, in his " Wanderings," ii. p. 121, " that he re- 

 marked some Chinese one morning near Macao, engaged in making very 

 durable rope3 from rattan. The rattans were split longitudinally, 

 soaked, and attached to a wheel, which one person was keeping in motion, 

 whilst another was binding the split rattans together, adding others to the 

 length from a quantity he carried around his waist, until the required 

 length of the rope was completed." 



Rattans are also occasionally used in India for making bridges, as de- 

 scribed in the following passage extracted from Dr. J. D. Hooker's Hima- 

 layan Journals : — " Soon after crossing the Rungmo, where it falls into the 



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