148 
OIL PAINTING WITHOUT A MASTER. 
[Nature and Art, October 1, 18GG. 
are nearly all the various contrivances used in the 
Eastern fisheries, such as rafts, outrigger boats, net 
scaffolds, (fee. &c. ; whilst floors, flat stages, and 
platforms are made from certain kinds, which having 
an incision made in them from end to end, are then 
flattened out and pressed until perfectly even, when 
they are used much as we use deal planks. A 
deep well may be excavated by splitting up the 
end of a long bamboo, and working it up and down 
in the ground until the filaments are clogged 
with earth and stones. These accumulations are 
shaken out at the surface from time to time, and 
the cane again introduced until a round hole of 
sufficient depth to reach the water has been formed. 
The benighted pedestrian provides himself with a 
walking-staff of split cane, the noise of which 
scares the snakes from his path. (We have often 
carried one of these when cobras were unpleasantly 
numerous.) The running postmen of India carry 
hollow bamboos with iron rings loosely fixed on 
them, so that the sharp clanking sound they give 
out may keep the prowling tiger at a resjjectful 
distance. Indefatigable John Chinaman, like 
Robinson Crusoe, is incomplete without his 
umbrella. Robinson constructed his partly of 
goat-skin, John makes his solely of bamboo, — the 
stick, the frame, and the cover. By steeping the 
wood and separating the soft white lining before 
referred to, a very serviceable description of paper 
is made, which is applied to numerous useful pur- 
poses, umbrella-covering amongst the number. 
A coat of varnish renders it impervious to rain, 
and its light colour readily reflects the sun. In 
certain islands of the Malayan Archipelago, the 
inhabitants have ingeniously converted the grow- 
ing bamboo into a natural instrument of music, and 
by perforating it with holes of different sizes 
according to the dimensions of the joints, the 
passing breeze eddying round and passing into them, 
produces tones and cadences of the sweetest melody, 
swelling and dying away like the sweeping strains 
of some huge AEolian harp, and charmingthe listener 
by their extreme wildness and apparent mystery. 
This forest organ is called by the Malays “ Bulu 
Perindu,” or the cane of melody. Other instru- 
ments less pleasing in their notes are constracted 
from bamboo joints arranged size after size, and 
struck with a wooden hammer : these are called 
“ Ankalongs.” 
Flutes and fifes of ear-piercing shrillness are 
constructed from the smaller joints, whilst “Pan’s, 
pipes ” are merely “ Ankalongs ” on a very small 
scale blown into instead of being struck. As an 
instrument of government, civil, military, and 
domestic, the bamboo reigns paramount in 
Eastern lands. Nothing can be done without its 
assistance. The governor of an unruly province, 
or the head of a family, alike seeks its aid in the 
maintenance of his due authority. As we see in 
the case of Hyson, Senr., when dealing with his 
disobedient but love-sick son : — 
“ And as the thrasher swings round in a trice, 
The ponderous flail and thrashes out the rice, 
So whirling round his head a stout bamboo, 
He thrash'd his son, his son who dared to woo.” * 
From youth to age, in sickness or in health, in joy 
and sorrow, from the cradle to the grave, bamboo 
and the Eastern man are inseparable. Close up 
his mines, cut clown his rice, and root up his fruit- 
trees, — he lives and struggles with adversity so 
long as his precious cane is spared. What would 
become of him if disease should fix on and sweep 
that away, is more than we can venture to speculate 
on. 
'* The Loves of Young' Hyson and Bohea. 
OIL PAINTING WITHOUT A MASTER; 
OE, HINTS FOE AMATEUES. 
By Mary Constance Clarke. 
T HE following hints for painting figures in oils 
are written for those amateurs who, not having 
been able to meet with good instruction, are yet 
desirous of trying to “walk alone” without the 
help of a master. The rules to be observed will 
probably be needed only by those who are teaching 
themselves, as the pupils of any master will, of 
course, wish to follow the practice of that master, 
in preference to any new or unaccustomed style. 
However, I hope that the experience of many years 
of study, and the results of much experimental 
painting, may not be found utterly useless to any 
amateur artist ; and as I have so often been asked, 
“ how I do it,’ I have endeavoured in this little 
treatise, to explain as well as I can, in writing, all 
that I have hitherto taught by word of mouth only. 
.1 am quite aware that many artists may object to 
several practices I have dared to suggest ; but after 
having tried divers styles and modes of colouring, 
1 have come to the conclusion, that for an amateur 
without a master, either of the following methods 
will be found the best to adopt. Trusting then, 
that these hints may meet with the approval of 
some artists, and be useful to those amateurs who 
are struggling on in thfi dark, and with whom I 
well know how to sympathize, I will, without 
further introduction, explain how a picture may 
be painted in oils. 
To paint a good picture, whether a copy or an 
original, it is necessary that the pupil should know 
how to draw, that is, should know the shape of 
every feature accurately, so that an eye may not 
be painted like an almond, or a mouth with a 
straight line through it. In fact, a slight knowledge 
