about 300 years ago. This very Spanish name for a native evokes a suspicion that the date given was the first _Spanish_ record of the matter, for it is most probable that the making of grass fibre hats in the Western Hemisphere was, like it has been shown to be in the Eastern, of the most remote antiquity. But researches made by our Consular Office can only supply the above information. The material used is derived from a kind of native palm or palm grass known as _paja toquilla_, and resembles, in its fan like shape, the _saw palmetto_. Cultivation usually takes place in selected low-hung wet lands, and the seed is planted in rows during the rainy season. When the grass attains a height of 4-1/2 to 5 ft., it is cut just before ripening, boiled in water, and after being thoroughly dried in the sun, is sorted through very carefully. The actual selection of fibres for the best class hat is most thorough, and all unlikely leaves are rejected. Those finally selected are in some districts, such as Manavi, dampened with water to make them tough, pliable, and amenable to stripping into the required widths. In Columbia, where the “Palmicha” is used, the leaves are boiled for a certain time till they soften and turn a light yellow in colour. This process of boiling is an art in itself, and seems to present greater difficulties without corresponding advantages to the simple damping. The leaves done by either method are then separated and hung to dry in a current of air, but not in the sun. Before they are quite dry the splitting operation commences; this is still done in some districts in the primitive method by the thumb-nail of the operator, in others a Y-shaped wooden tool is used. The splints, when being split are made to curl slightly at the edges, causing the fibre to assume a roundness. The subsequent drying causes this roundness to become permanent. They are then made into suitable bundles, and wrapped in clean damp cloths to protect them from the dry atmosphere as well as from the light. The hood weavers commence at the apex of crown and continue the weaving in a circular and transverse manner, until the edge of the brim is reached, when a double “return” is made to give strength and form to the hat. Some centres use wooden blocks, on which the hood is shaped during its progress of weaving, others follow simply the primitive method of rule of thumb, but during late years the demand for larger head entries to Panama hats has caused a more general using of either the wooden block or a suitable template in order that the size of the crowns may be more uniform. In some places the various parts of the hood are made by different operatives, thus the crown or the top only may be woven by one, the side of crown by another, and the brim by a third; generally there are two. [Illustration: Fig. 7 PANAMA HOOD MAKING--TYPICAL OF WORK ON ALL WOVEN STRAW HATS]