“All these and many left untold,” the poet says, and when we once begin to let our thoughts run we find uses almost innumerable, on sea and land, to which our rope is put. Then, if we allow ourselves to come more and more under the drowsy spell of the wheels, we wonder how long all these things have been going on, and when, where and how the first rope was made and used. A little investigation shows us that the use of rope is older than history itself. Back beyond the time of any authentic record of events, beyond even the range of tradition, the first rope-makers did their work. In his very earliest days man must have had something to serve for cords or lines,--strips of hide or of bark, pliant reeds and rushes, withes of tough woods, fibrous roots, hair of animals,--then, as the need arose for longer, larger and stronger lines, it was met, as human ingenuity developed, by twisting a number of some of these elements together and forming a rope or cord. Just who was the prehistoric genius that first performed this operation, or in what part of the world he lived, we have no means of knowing. Certain it is, according to the best authority, that not only were the ancient civilized nations accomplished rope-makers, but savage tribes in all parts of the world, for unknown thousands of years, have been able to make ropes and cords from a great variety of materials, and the beauty of their workmanship in many cases is little short of marvelous. The North American Indians, for instance, are known to have made cordage not only from well-known fiber plants, as cotton, yucca and agave, but from such plants as the dogbane and nettle; from the inner bark of trees, slippery elm, willow, linden; from the fibrous roots of the spruce and pine; and from the hair, skins or sinews of various animals. [Illustration: NOOTKA WHALING LINES] The native Peruvians were good rope-makers, using a substance known as “totora,” as well as many other materials. The Island tribes of the South Seas, expert in making rope, are favored with some very good materials for its manufacture, obtained from the leaves of various palms and plantains, from the fiber of the cocoanut, etc. [Illustration] As, at the present day, the shipping and fishing industries are among the principal users of cordage, so it has been among all tribes and nations from earliest times. The people who lived on islands or the shores of large bodies of water, and who thus naturally became fishermen, have been the larger users of ropes and lines, and we find they always have been capable of producing a wide variety of fishing lines and nets of excellent construction, capable of capturing all sorts of fish, from the smallest brook trout to the huge sturgeon or halibut. [Illustration: SCENE IN AN EGYPTIAN KITCHEN SHOWING USE OF A LARGE ROPE TO SUPPORT A SORT OF HANGING SHELF]