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 flinting 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-canoe which we see in Europe, are the first and smallest shoots of the bamboos.—The Malays,