But what seemed to us the most wonderful thing about it was a
curious substance resembling cloth, which was wrapped round the thick
end of the stalk, where it had been cut from the tree. Peterkin told us
that he had the greatest difficulty in separating the branch from the
stem on account of this substance, as it was wrapped quite round the
tree, and, he observed, round all the other branches, thus forming a
strong support to the large leaves while exposed to high winds. When I
call this substance cloth I do not exaggerate. Indeed, with regard to
all the things I saw during my eventful career in the South Seas, I
have been exceedingly careful not to exaggerate, or in any way to
mislead or deceive my readers. This cloth, I say, was remarkably like
to coarse brown cotton cloth. It had a seam or fibre down the centre of
it, from which diverged other fibres, about the size of a bristle.
There were two layers of these fibres, very long and tough, the one
layer crossing the other obliquely, and the whole was cemented together
with a still finer fibrous and adhesive substance. When we regarded it
attentively, we could with difficulty believe that it had not been
woven by human hands. This remarkable piece of cloth we stripped
carefully off, and found it to be above two feet long by a foot broad,
and we carried it home with us as a great prize.
Jack now took one of the leaflets, and, cutting out the central spine
or stalk, hurried back with it to our camp.
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