The carriers (generally of the bearer caste), by the help of a split bamboo over the shoulder, convey heavy loads suspended by cords at each end, from one part of India to the other, many hundred miles distant.  No other wood could answer this purpose so well; the bamboo being remarkably light and of a very pliant nature lessens the fatigue to the bearer, whilst almost any wood sufficiently strong to bear the packages would fret the man’s shoulder and add burden to burden.  The bearers do not like to carry more than twelve seer (twenty-four pounds) slung by ropes at each end of their bamboo for any great distance; but, I fear, they are not always allowed the privilege of thinking for themselves in these matters.

When a hackery[40] (sort of waggon) is about to be loaded with of corn or goods, a railing is formed by means of bamboos to admit the luggage; thus rendering the waggon itself much lighter than if built of solid wood, an object of some moment, when considering the smallness of the cattle used for draught, oxen of a small breed being in general use for waggons, carts, ploughs, &c.  I have never seen horses harnessed to any vehicle in India, except to such gentlemen’s carriages as are built on the English principle.

The Native carriages of ladies and travellers are indebted to the bamboo for all the wood used in the construction of the body, which is merely a frame covered with cloth, shaped in several different ways,—­some square, others double cones, &c.

Baskets of every shape and size, coarse or fine, are made of the split bamboo; covers for dinner trays, on which the food is sent from the kitchen to the hall; cheese-presses, punkahs, and screens, ingeniously contrived in great varieties; netting-needles and pins, latches and bolts for doors; skewers and spits; umbrella sticks, and walking canes; toys in countless ways, and frames for needle-work.

A long line of etceteras might here be added as to the number of good purposes to which the bamboo is adapted and appropriated in Native economy; I must not omit that even the writing-paper on which I first practised the Persian character was manufactured from the bamboo, which is esteemed more durable, but not so smooth as their paper made from cotton.  The young shoots of bamboo are both pickled and preserved by the Natives, and esteemed a great luxury when produced at meals with savoury pillaus, &c.

I am told, a whole forest of bamboo has sometimes been consumed by fire, ignited by their own friction in a heavy storm, and the blaze fanned by the opposing wind; the devouring element, under such circumstances, could be stayed only when there ceased to be a tree to feed the flame.

[1] The Indian rose-water is made principally from Rosa damascena about
    Ghazipur in the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh.  It has no
    medicinal value, but is used as a vehicle for other mixtures (Watt,
    Economic Dictionary, VI, part i. 560 ff.).