:> 
BASKETS. 
liosEAPPLE, — largest material used ; similar 
to lrook in appearance, excellent for hampers 
and large butchers’ baskets. 
Wire-grass, — a small, round, yellow straw; 
used for bottoms for small baskets. 
Basket-making*. 
The art of basket-making is simple : the 
material being woven, interlaced, or twisted 
and sown together. No tools or moulds are 
used, and yet patterns sent are readily copied, 
with remarkable approximation to size and 
shape. 
Fancy baskets. These are made from the 
straw and materials above mentioned with the 
introduction of some modification of the plain 
pattern (e.g., the “ shell” plait) or by dyeing 
parts of the baskets. 
Handles. Bamboo, hook, rose-apple, and 
the mid-rib of the leaves of palms, are used 
to give the required stiffness, but these are 
sometimes covered with the straw of which 
the basket is made. 
Variegated colours. Of the variegated 
colours seen in many baskets, the light red is 
due to anatta, the light brown to a strip of the 
leaf of the coconut palm and the dark brown 
to a strip of the long seed case, or silique , of 
the yoke tree. Bush dyes are occasionally 
used. 
Baskets thickly daubed with ordinary house 
paint, of the brightest hues, are most ad- 
mired by the peasant women with whose 
