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As the kayar, of which it is composed, is now getting into use both in England and America, as well for ropes and rigging as for mats and rugs, my Lascar friend's account of it, joined to my own observations, may not be uninteresting. In India, it is prepared very much in the same way as in Polynesia.
I thought I was in Pegu, so strangely woody was the smell of the dark-colored timbers, whose odor was heightened by the rigging of kayar, or cocoa-nut fiber. The Lascars were on the forecastle-deck. Among them were Malays, Mahrattas, Burmese, Siamese, and Cingalese.
But the kayar is not made from the husk, as might be supposed, but from the rind of the nut; which, after being long soaked in water, is beaten with mallets, and rubbed together into fibers. After this being dried in the sun, you may spin it, just like hemp, or any similar substance.
But this is no place for making mention of all the subjects upon which I and my Lascar friend mostly discoursed; I will only try to give his account of the teakwood and kayar rope, concerning which things I was curious, and sought information.
But the elasticity of the kayar ill fits it for the shrouds and standing-rigging of a ship, which require to be comparatively firm. Hence, as the Irrawaddy's shrouds were all of this substance, the Lascar told me, they were continually setting up or slacking off her standing-rigging, according as the weather was cold or warm.
And the loss of a foretopmast, between the tropics, in a squall, he attributed to this circumstance. After a stay of about two weeks, the Irrawaddy had her heavy Indian spars replaced with Canadian pine, and her kayar shrouds with hempen ones. She then mustered her pagans, and hoisted sail for London.
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