Page:Illustrations of China and Its People vol. II.pdf/9



THE bamboo is one of the most serviceable plants of Southern China, for which reason I have assigned it an important place in this work. But its uses are not confined solely to the south, where it grows in greatest perfection. It figures extensively in the social economy of the people throughout the length and breadth of the Empire. Were every other means of support withdrawn, except bamboos and rice, these two plants would supply the necessaries for clothing, habitation, and food, indeed, the bamboo alone, as I propose to show, would bear the lion's share of the burden. No tending is needed for this hardy-natured plant, nor is it dainty in the choice of its locality, for it grows with equal vigour on the thin soil of rocky hill-sides, and in the well-tilled fields or gardens of the valleys below. It towers a stately clump of giant grass, one hundred feet or more in height, spreading out its leafy tops in graceful plumage and forming a thick, strong fence with its straight tough stems beneath, while its pale green foliage casts a grateful shade over the dwellings which it hedges around. The traveller, if he takes notice of the habitations of the Chinese, cannot fail to discover that both in the style of construction and ornamentation much has originally been derived from the bamboo, as well as from the tent of nomadic life. Thus, in the rude homes of the villagers, the stout stems of the plant are still used for the main supports and frame-work. The slender stalks are split into laths, and the leaves furnish a covering for the walls and roof. In dwellings of greater pretensions, and in temples where brick and mortar have been employed, the painted and gilded hardwood beams have been fashioned to imitate the bamboo stems. The waterways along the roof partake of the same type, and the white plastered panels are embellished with spirited drawings of the much-loved bamboo. I will now glance at the duties which this plant is made to discharge in the domestic economy of the dwelling. Within, hanging from the rafters, are a number of hooks of prickly bamboo, and these support pieces of dried pork and such-like provision. There are rats about, but the prickles threaten with their cJtevaux de /rise, and recall the motto of Scotland to the mind— "Nemo me impune lacessit." In one corner are a waterproof coat and hat, each wrought out of leaves of bamboo which overlap like the plumage of a bird. Elsewhere we see agricultural implements, principally fashioned out of bamboo, and Indeed, except the deal top of the table, the furniture of this simple abode is all of the same material. The fishing-net, the baskets of diverse shapes, the paper and pens (never absent, even from the humblest houses), the grain- measures, the wine-cups, the waterladles, the chop-sticks, and finally the tobacco-pipes, all are of bamboo. The man who dwells there is feasting on the tender shoots of the plant, and if you ask him, he will tell you that his earliest impressions came to him through the basket-work of his bamboo cradle, and that his latest hope will be to lie beneath some bamboo brake on a cool hill-side. The plant is also extensively used in the sacred offices of the Buddhist temples. Strangely contorted bits of bamboo root are set up in the shrine. The most ancient Buddhist classics were cut on strips of bamboo. The divination sticks, and the case which contains them, are manufactured out of its stem, while the courts outside the temple are fanned and sheltered by its nodding plumes.

It is impossible, in a volume such as this, to enumerate all the varied uses to which the bamboo is applied, or to form an estimate of its value to the inhabitants of China. Thus much, however, I may unhesitatingly affirm, that so multifarious are the duties which the bamboo is made to discharge, and so wide-spread are the benefits which it confers upon the Chinese, as to render it beyond all others the most useful plant in the empire.