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EQUATORIAL VEGETATION 
261 
septa of the joints. This prevents the water from running 
out too quickly, and facilitates its being poured out in a 
regulated stream to the last drop. Three or four of these 
water-vessels are tied together and carried on the back, and 
they stand very conveniently in a corner of the hut. Water- 
pipes and aqueducts are also readily made from bamboo tubes 
supported at intervals on two smaller pieces tied crosswise. 
In this way a stream of water is often conveyed from some 
distance to the middle of a village. Measures for rice or 
palm-wine, drinking-vessels, and water-dippers, are to be found 
almost ready-made in a joint of bamboo; and when fitted 
with a cap or lid they form tobacco or tinder-boxes. Perches 
for parrots, with food and water vessels, are easily made out 
of a single piece of bamboo, while with a little more labour 
elegant bird-cages are constructed. In Timor a musical 
instrument is formed from a single joint of a large bamboo 
by carefully raising seven strips of the hard skin to form 
strings, which remain attached at both ends and are elevated 
by small pegs wedged underneath, the strings being prevented 
from splitting off by a strongly-plaited ring of a similar mate- 
rial bound round each end. An opening cut on one side 
allows the bamboo to vibrate in musical notes when the harp- 
like strings are sharply pulled with the fingers. In Java 
strips of bamboo supported on stretched strings and struck 
with a small stick produce the higher notes in the “game- 
lung ” or native band, which consists mainly of sets of gongs 
and metallic plates of various sizes. Almost all the common 
Chinese paper is made from the foliage and stems of some 
species of bamboo, while the young shoots, as they first spring 
out of the ground, are an excellent vegetable, quite equal to 
artichokes. Single joints of bamboo make excellent cooking- 
vessels while on a journey. Rice can be boiled in them to 
perfection, as well as fish and vegetables. They serve too for 
jars in which to preserve sugar, salt, fruit, molasses, and 
cooked provisions ; and for the smoker, excellent pipes and 
hookahs can be formed in a few minutes out of properly 
chosen joints of bamboo. 
These are only a sample of the endless purposes to which 
the bamboo is applied in the countries of which it is a 
native, its chief characteristic being that in a few minutes it 
