An article of household furniture in use among all classes, and displaying in some cases considerable beauty and delicacy of execution, is matting. Mats are made from several species of pandanus, from a kind of grass called _mándong_, and from the leaves of various palms. A species of the latter affords the most common kinds, coarser and less durable than others, as well as bags (straw sacks) resembling coarse mats: the leaves being divided into laminæ, about one line in breadth, are woven in the same manner and on the same frames as coarse linen. These fibres, called _ágel_, are sometimes manufactured into twine, which possesses but little strength. The mats or bags, called _károng_, are much inferior to the gunny-bags of India. The coarsest kinds of mats, employed chiefly by the lower class, are called in the central districts _klóso bóngko_; those prepared from grass, _klóso mándong_; and the others, _klóso psántrem_ (from the place where they are made). The materials of all these are plaited by hand. The _klóso psántrem_ are of superior quality, and in use through the central and eastern parts of the island; especially among the natives of the first class, with whom they constitute the principal furniture of the dwelling-house. A person of the highest rank aspires to no luxury, more delicate or expensive in this way, than the possession of a bed composed of mats from _psántrem_. A kind of umbrella hat worn by the common people, and universal in the Súnda districts denominated _chápeng_, is also manufactured in this manner, principally from _bámbu_, dyed of various colours, which being shaped in the form and of the size of a large wash-hand basin worn reversed, is rendered impervious to the wet by one or more coverings of varnish. A great part of the manufacturing ingenuity of every people must be displayed in collecting the materials, or arranging the fabrics of those articles of clothing, required for protection, decency, or ornament. Whether these materials are derived from the fleece, the fur, or the feathers of the larger animals, from the covering of an insect, the bark of a tree, or the down of a shrub, they have to undergo several laborious and expensive processes before they are fit for use; and in conducting these processes, or forming machinery for rendering them more expeditious, complete, and easy, the superior manufacturing skill of one nation over another is chiefly evinced. The sheep on Java, as in all tropical climates, loses its fleece before it can be used with advantage. The silk-worm has never succeeded, although no reason can be given why it should not, and therefore the chief material of Javan clothing is cotton.