Page:Ling-Nam; or, Interior views of southern China, including explorations in the hitherto untraversed island of Hainan (IA cu31924023225307).pdf/116

 ize Ling-Nam.

and rigging, the mast and oar locks are of bamboo. Window blinds, curtains, brooms, and their handles, brushes, desks, boxes, and frames of all kinds, are made with it, Baskets of all sizes, from the tiny toy to the great receptacles for grain that will hold a ton or more, baskets for carrying pigs, big and little, for ducks, geesc, chickens, all in different shapes, birdcages, cricket traps, snares to entrap partridge and quail, hampers to carry provisions, are made of bamboo ; tubs, and the hoops around them, knives, incense sticks, hairpins, combs, hat strings, jugs, teapots, paint-boxes, spoons, and suchlike, are produced. The fisherman finds his raft, his net, his dredge and its long handle, his anchoring post, his floats, and baskets of various shapes, for catching shrimps, fish, erabs, ete., are all of this material. The scholar uses pen, paper, scroll, and tablets, the soldier his spear, arrows, bow, shield, military hat, torch, splints for wounded limbs, shovels and spades for excavation, the magician his divining slips, tallies, and tokens, the gambler his tickets, all of this material; while canes, flutes, cowbells, castanets, silk-worm frames, fans, handles and frames, gates, fences, sieves, scoops, pot-handles, and drying-poles, extend the long catalogue. Pins, tubes, probes, props for fruit trees, carrying-poles, sedan chairs, money-boxes, weaving frames, sofas, trays of all sizes, from two inches to six feet and more in diameter, awnings over streets and before houses, chopsticks, flower-pots, girdles, hedges, books, and various other articles are made from this most useful plant.

Beside the purely utilitarian view of the bamboo there is the artistie and esthetic side. It has furnished more poetical figures and influenced popular taste to a greater