THE USES OF THE BAMBOO. 121 



of silkworms were brought in a bamboo cane from China to Constanti- 

 nople, in the time- of Justinian. A joint of bamboo answers the 

 purpose of a bottle ; and a section of it is a measure for liquids, rice, &c, 

 m bazaars. It is also used as a pot for slips or seeds of plants, and when 

 matured is easily split and separated, when required to be put into 

 the earth. A piece of it is used as a blow-pipe, and as a tube in a 

 distilling apparatus. A small bit of it, split at one end, serves as tongs 

 to take up burning charcoal ; and a thin slip of it is sharp enough to be 

 used as a knife in shelling betel-nuts, &e. Its surface is so hard, that 

 it serves the purpose of a whetstone, upon which the ryots sharpen 

 their bill-hooks, sickles, &c. Its growth is very rapid ; Dr. John Davy 

 has known a bamboo to shoot fourteen inches in twenty-four hours in 

 Ceylon. 



The mowchok, the most beautiful bamboo in the world, is peculiar to 

 China. It attains to its full height of from sixty to eighty feet in a 

 few months ; and Mr. Fortune, who was in the habit of measuring its 

 daily growth in the Chinese woods, found that it shot up from two to 

 two and a-half feet in twenty-four hours. Uulike the bushy bamboo 

 of India, with its large joints and branches throughout its stem, the 

 mow-chok usually presents a bare surface for thirty feet from the 

 ground. The freedom from knots and the fineness of its structure 

 render the wood of great importance in the arts. Indeed, the number 

 of uses to which this plant can be put is surprising. When it first 

 shoots from the soil it is cut like asparagus and eaten as a vegetable 

 Mr. Fortune found it excellent, and during the time it was in season 

 had it for dinner every day. The interior portion of the stem is beaten 

 into pulp for paper, the exterior is slit into strips for the weaving of 

 ropes, baskets, and sieves. Ornamental inlaid work is constructed from 

 it, and the entire pole, from its combined lightness and strength, answers 

 every purpose for which poles can be employed. - Mr. Fortune has done 

 the service of introducing this invaluable variety into India, and it is 

 now growing on the slopes of the Himalaya. 



The Dyaks of Borneo boil their food in bamboo cut into lengths of 

 about two or three feet. These are placed over the fire in such a position 

 that the joint of the bamboo does not come into contact with it, but 

 rests upon the ground beyond it, the fire being placed under the green 

 and harder part of the cane, which from its silicious coating resists the 

 effects of the heat and flame, until the provisions are sufficiently pre- 

 pared. A bundle of leaves placed in the mouth of the bamboo answers 

 the purposes of the lid of an ordinary cooking pot. 



The uses of the bamboo among the " Celestials" are so numerous as 

 to entitle this grass to be called the" national plant of the Chinese. It 

 grows naturally throughout the country, nearly to the latitude of Pekin, 

 diminishing in size and strength as one goes northward. The varieties 

 induced during the long period of its culture are numerous ; and a 

 native writer on its propagation observes, at the outset of his treatise, 



Vot,. in, I 



