ON THE ECONOMIC USES OF LEAVES. 195 



fronds. A fine downy substance is found "at the base of the leaves used 

 for stopping bleeding wounds. 



The leaves of the palmyra and talipot palms are made into umbrellas 

 baskets, &c, but they furnish no useful fibre. Palmyra mats are used 

 for packing betel nuts in. In Tinnivelly, from a single palmyrah leaf 

 buckets are made which are used for drawing water from wells. 



A flexible integument of the leaf of the Areca palm is used for nume- 

 rous purposes, and especially for making a kind of shelter or covering 

 to protect the blossom of the tree from the rain. The tying on of these 

 caps is one of the chief expenses incurred in this cultivation. 



It is also made into sooparee caps, which are worn by the Bunts, an 

 agricultural class of Hindoos in the district of Canara, and into coverlets. 



The fibre of the lower end of the leaf of the Bynee (Caryota wrens) is of 

 remarkable strength, and applied to many purposes, especially for fishing 

 lines. In England it is termed India gut. Lately it has been largely 

 introduced as Kittool fibre from Ceylon. 



Under the name of Nipap, or atep, the leaves of the Nipa fruticans 

 aTe used very generally in the far East for thatching. 



Of the leaves of the date palm (Phomix dactylifera), brooms and brushes 

 are made in Egypt. Of the fibre (lif, or loot), by which the petioles are 

 bound together, all sorts of cordage are made ; and it is used as a flesh 

 rubber in the baths. 



Mats, baskets, and plates, are made by the Nubian women of the 

 leaves of the doum palm {HypTiaene Thebaica). Palm-leaf mats are 

 also made at Tripoli and other places. Mats ^are made of date-leal in 

 Madras, of the fragrant screw pine, and the pandanus-leaf. 



In Ceylon, many of the indigenous inhabitants, as well as natives of 

 Europe, thatch their houses with coco-nut leaves, by the Singalese called 

 poiattu, and sometimes cadjans. The latter term has, I believe, a Malay 

 origin. To prepare cadjans, the stipe, or central ligneous portion of the 

 leaf is divided longitudinally ; the leaflets of each half are then inter- 

 woven, by which means they are adapted for a variety of uses. In this 

 state they are employed to thatch cottages, to shelter young plants from 

 the scorching rays of the sun, to construct fences, to form the ceilings of 

 rooms, and to make baskets for carrying fruit, fish, &c. 



Sometimes baskets are made of palm-leaves, so close as to serve the 

 purpose of buckets to draw water from deep wells. In the Maldive 

 Islands, boneta, a species of fish, is preserved by a process in which 

 coco-leaves are employed. The process consists in removing the back- 

 bone and laying the fish in the shade, occasionally sprinkling it with 

 salt water. After a certain period has elapsed, the fish is wrapped up in 

 coco-nut leaves and buried in sand, where it becomes hard. Fish thus 

 prepared is known in Ceylon, and perhaps over all India, by the name of 

 cummelmums. The pieces of this fish brought to the market have a horny 

 hardness. It is rasped upon rice to render it savoury. The inhabitants 

 of several of the South Sea Islands manufacture a kind of mask or vizor 



