BAMBOE, in botany, the trivial name of a species of arundo *.—It is a plant which multiplies very much by its root, from which springs a ramous or branchy tuft, after the manner of the European reeds. The Indian bamboo is the largest kind of cane that is known. It is of an extraordinary height and bigness, when it bears its blossom: each shoot or cane is often, towards the bottom, of the bigness of a man's thigh, and decreases gradually to the top, where it bears a blossom or flower, like our reeds, in their proper season. With these canes of bamboo the Indians build their houses, and make all sorts of furniture, in a very ingenious manner. The wood of these canes is so hard and strong, that they serve very well to make piles for supporting their little houses, built over rivers, which have a gentle course, as if it were over flanting waters. They also make with this wood all sorts of utensils for their kitchens and tables. The thickest bamboos serve to make the sticks and poles with which the slaves or other persons carry those sorts of litters which are called palanquins, and are so common in use and so convenient in all the east. They likewise make of that wood a kind of pails, in which the water keeps extremely cool. The walking-canes which we see in Europe, are the first and smallest shoots of the bamboos.—The Malays,
Bamboo, Bambuck.
lays, and those Chinese who are dispersed in the Moluccas and Sunda isles, use the young small shoots of the bamboos preserved in vinegar after their manner, with very strong peppered ingredients. This they call achiar bamboo. For they give the name of achiar to all that is preserved in vinegar; and, to distinguish it, they add to that name of achiar that of the thing preserved. — Two pieces of bamboo of a certain bigness, being rubbed hard against each other after a certain manner, will produce fire; and, when the Indians cannot get any by other means, they obtain it that way.
BAMBOO-Habit; a Chinese contrivance by which a person who does not know how to swim may easily keep himself above water. The following account of it is from a letter to the author of the Seaman's Preservation. "In the year 1730, I was passenger in a ship from Batavia to China, burden about 400 tons, called the Pridae, Francisco Xavier commander, freighted by English, Chinese, and Portuguese. Near the coast of China we met one of those storms called a Tustoon, (Tau song) or a great wind, which carried away all our masts, bowsprit, and rudder; and in our hold we had six feet of water, expecting every moment the ship would founder. — We consequently were consulting our preservation: the English and Portuguese stood in their shirts only, ready to be thrown off; but the Chinese merchants came upon deck, not in a cork-jacket, but I will call it a bamboo-habit, which had lain ready in their chests against such dangers; and it was thus constructed; four bamboos, two before, and two behind their bodies, were placed horizontally, and projected about 23 inches. These were crossed on each side by two others, and the whole properly secured, leaving a space for their body; so that they had only to put it over their heads, and tie the same securely, which was done in two minutes, and we were satisfied they could not possibly sink." The shape is here subjoined.