ON THE ECONOMIC USES OF BAMBOOS. 



273 



and pens, with arms, with fishing-tackle, with masts, sails, and 

 ropes for his boat, sometimes with the boat itself. It will have 

 furnished him with nearly all the implements of his daily toil 

 in the fields, and soothed his evening leisure with melody, for 

 the Bamboo is specially, as Shelley said of the guitar, " the 

 slave of music." Is he an artist ? Here is his model and the 

 brush wherewith to paint its grace. Many a time during my 

 wanderings far away in the interior of China I have rested in 

 some little wayside inn, the walls of which have been decorated 

 by wandering painters, each paying his shot with his skill, and 

 more often than not the subject has been a dainty study of 

 Bamboo, with perhaps just the suggestion of rock and river. 

 To the four hundred millions of Chinamen, rich and poor alike, 

 this is a living thought : " How can I exist for a single day 

 without this gentleman ? " 



In India it has been recorded how, over and over again, the 

 seeding of the Bamboos has stood between the natives and death 

 from starvation ; while the ingenious ways in which the plants 

 are turned to account for the most various purposes has aroused 

 the admiration of travellers, and notably of that most dis- 

 tinguished man, Sir Joseph Hooker, who alludes to them more 

 than once in his Himalayan journals. A few weeks ago I fell 

 in with one of our great Indian officials, who told me of a 

 property in Bamboos which was new to me. He was on duty on 

 the north-east frontier of India. It was a dry and thirsty land, 

 and what scanty supplies of water were to be found were 

 impure and poisonous. Luckily there was a great Bamboo 

 growing there, 20 inches in circumference, of which the Ghoorkas 

 tapped the internodes with their knives, drawing from each joint 

 about a teacupful of deliciously pure wholesome water. The 

 kindly plant had sucked it up foul from the soil, and literally 

 filtered it. My friend could not give me the name of the 

 species, nor have I been able to ascertain it. I could not help 

 thinking it somewhat ungrateful not even to have asked the 

 name of so good a friend. 



Even the most savage and primitive races make the Bamboo 

 serve the wants of their simple lives. It furnishes weapons for 

 war and hunting, traps, tackle for fishing, and other obvious and 

 simple implements. The blow-pipes from which the Jacoons, 

 or Tree-men of the Malay Archipelago, shoot out poisoned 



