M. de la Rouverie affirms, that he procured a beautiful vegetable silk from the Papyfera or paper mulberry; cutting the bark while the tree was in sap, beating it with mallets, and steeping it in water; he obtained a thread from the fibres, almost equal to silk in quality; and this was woven into a cloth the texture of which appeared as if formed of that material. The finest sort of cloth among the inhabitants of Otaheite, and other of the South Sea Islands, is made of the bark of this tree. According to M. Chevremont, Engineer of Mines, “ropes made of aloes have _four times the resistance_ of those of hemp of the same diameter, and made by the same process(?). The fibres of the aloe contain a resinous substance which protects the ropes from the action of moisture: even at sea, and renders the tarring of them unnecessary. They are lighter than hempen ropes, and lose nothing of their strength by being wet(?). When plunged into water, they are shortened only two per cent., so that they become less rigid than ropes made of hemp(?).” There appears to be a good deal of exaggeration in regard to the great superiority of the fibres of these plants over cotton, flax, &c. This is particularly the case in regard to Mr. Zincke, for although he succeeded in producing some very beautiful specimens of fabric, in conformity with the foregoing specification, yet, the manufacture does not appear to make much progress, chiefly on account of the _inferiority in point of strength of the cloth_, more especially when bleached. CHAPTER XII. MALLOWS. CULTIVATION AND USE OF THE MALLOW AMONG THE ANCIENTS.--TESTIMONY OF LATIN, GREEK, AND ATTIC WRITERS. The earliest mention of Mallows is to be found in Job xxx. 4.--Varieties of the Mallow--Cultivation and use of the Mallow--Testimony of ancient authors--Papias and Isidore’s mention of Mallow cloth--Mallow cloth common in the days of Charlemagne--Mallow shawls--Mallow cloths mentioned in the Periplus as exported from India to Barygaza (Baroch)--Calidāsa the Indian dramatist, who lived in the first century B. C.--His testimony--Wallich’s (the Indian botanist) account--Mantles of woven bark, mentioned in the Sacontăla of Calidāsa--Valcălas or Mantles of woven bark, mentioned in the Ramayana, a noted poem of ancient India--Sheets made from trees--Ctesias’ testimony--Strabo’s account--Testimony of Statius Cæcilius and Plautus, who lived 169 B. C. and 184 B. C.--Plautus’s laughable enumeration of the analogy of trades--Beauty of garments of Amorgos mentioned by Eupolis--Clearchus’s testimony--Plato mentions linen shifts--Amorgine garments first manufactured at Athens in the time of Aristophanes. The earliest mention of mallows is that given in the book of Job, in the following words: “For want and famine they were solitary: fleeing into the wilderness in former time desolate and waste. Who cut up _mallows_ by the bushes, and _juniper-roots_ for their meat.”--Job xxx. 4.