ON THE ECONOMIC USES OF BAMBOOS. 
278 
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 
