Page:History of the Indian Archipelago Vol 3.djvu/439

 ARTICLES OF EXPORTATION. 423 hard wood, chiefly valued for being almost incor- ruptible. It resists every alternation of heat, cold, and moisture, and nothing proves injurious to it but the depredation of the water-worm, or Teredo navalis. Rattans form one of the greatest articles of ex- portation from the Indian Islands, and are sent to Bengal, to Europe, and above all to China, where an immense quantity is consumed as cordage. The rattan is the spontaneous product of all the forests of the Archipelago, but exists in greatest perfec- tion in those of tiie Islands of Borneo, Sumatra, and of the Malayan Peninsula. The finest are produced in the country of the Bataks of Suma- tra. The wood-cutter, who is inclined to deal in this article, proceeds into the forest, without any other instrument than his pai^ang or cleaver, and cuts as much as he is able to carry away. The mode of performing the operation is this : He makes a notch in the tree, at the root of which the rattan is growing, and cutting the latter, strips off a small portion of the outer bark, and inserts the part that is peeled into the notch. The rattan being now pulled through, as long as it continues of an equal size, is by this operation neatly and readily freed from its epidermis. When the wood-cutter has obtained by this means from three hundred to ibur hundred rattans, being as many as an individual can conveniently carry in their