VARNISH TREE. 
99 
tracted by the proprietors of those trees, but by 
merchants, who purchase them for the season, at 
the rate of three-pence per foot. These merchants 
afterwards hire workmen, to whom they give an 
ounce of silver per month both for their labour and 
maintenance. One workman is sufficient for fifty 
feet of timber. 
“ While the varnish distills, it exhales a malig- 
nant vapour, the bad effects of which can only be 
prevented by preservatives and great precaution. 
The merchant who employs these workmen is ob- 
liged to keep by him a large vase filled with rape-oil, 
in which a certain quantity of those filaments have 
been boiled that are found in hog’s lard, and which 
do not melt. When the workmen are going to fix 
the shells to the trees, they carry some of this oil 
along with them, and rub their face and hands 
with it, which they do with greater care when 
they collect, in the morning, the varnish that has 
distilled during night. After eating, they wash 
their whole bodies with warm water in which the 
bark of the chestnut-tree, fir-wood, crystallized 
saltpetre, and some other drugs, have been boiled. 
When they are at work near the trees, they put 
upon their heads a small cloth bag, in which there 
are two holes, and cover the fore part of their 
bodies with a kind of apron made of doe-skin* 
which is suspended from their necks with strings, 
and tied round them with a girdle. They also wear 
boots, and have coverings on their arms made of the 
same kind of skin. The labourer who should at- 
h 2 
