DESIRE FOR BOOKS. 1 
their endeavours to obtain a substitute for books 
The bark of the paper mulberry was frequently 
beaten to a pulp, spread out on a board, and 
wrought and dried with great care, till it resembled 
a coarse sort of card. This was sometimes cut into 
pieces about the size of the leaves of a book ; and 
upon these, with a reed cut in the shape of a pen, 
and immersed in red or purple vegetable dye, the 
alphabet, syllabic, and reading lessons of the spell¬ 
ing-book, and the scripture extracts usually read 
in the school, have been neatly and correctly copied. 
Sometimes the whole was accurately written on 
one broad sheet of paper like native cloth, and, 
after the manner of the ancients, carefully rolled 
up, except when used. This was often the only 
kind of book that the natives in remote districts 
possessed; and many families have, without any 
other lessons, acquired a proficiency, that has 
enabled them to read at once a printed copy of the 
scriptures. It has also gratified us, as indicative 
of the estimation in which the people held every 
portion of the word of God, and their desire to 
possess it, to behold them anxiously preserving 
even the smallest piece of paper, and writing on it 
texts of the scripture which they had heard in the 
place of worship. 
These detached scraps of paper, containing the 
sacred texts, were not, like the phylacteries of the 
Jews, bound on the forehead, or attached to the 
border of the garment, but carefully kept in a neat 
little basket. The possessor of such an envied 
treasure might often be seen sitting on the grass, 
with his little basket beside him, reading, to his 
companions around, these portions of the scripture. 
I have a number in the hand-writing of the 
natives, some of which they have brought, to have 
