e to six
inches wide, and drawn under a knife attached at one end by a hinge to
a block of wood, whilst the other end is suspended to the extremity
of a flexible stick. The bow tends to raise the knife, and a cord,
attached to the same end of the knife, and a treadle are so arranged
that by a movement of the foot the operator can bring the knife to
work on the hemp petiole with the pressure he chooses. The bast is
drawn through between the knife and the block, the operator twisting
the fibre, at each pull, around a stick of wood or his arm, whilst the
parenchymatous pulp remains on the other side of the knife. There is
no use for the pulp. The knife should be without teeth or indentations,
but nearly everywhere in Capis Province I have seen it with a slightly
serrated edge. The fibre is then spread out to dry, and afterwards
tightly packed in bales with iron or rattan hoops for shipment.

A finer fibre than the ordinary hemp is sometimes obtained in
small quantities from the specially-selected edges of the petiole,
and this material is used by the natives for weaving. The quantity
procurable is limited, and the difficulty in obtaining it consists
in the frequent breakage of the fibre whilst being drawn, due to
its comparative fragility. Its commercial value is about double
that of ordinary first-class cordage hemp. The stuff made from this
fine fibre (in Bicol dialect, _Lupis_) suits admirably for ladies'
dresses. Ordinary hemp fibre is used for the manufacture of coarse
native stuff, known in Manila as _Sinamay_, much worn by the poorer
classes of natives; large quantities of it come from Yloilo. In Panay
Island a kind of texture called _Husi_ is made of a mixture of fine
hemp (_lupis_) and pine-apple leaf fibre. Sometimes this fabric is
palmed off on foreigners as pure _pina_ stuff, but a connoisseur
can easily detect the hemp filament by the touch of the material,
there being in the hemp-fibre, as in horsehair, a certain amount of
stiffness and a tendency to spring back which, when compressed into a
ball in the hand, prevents the stuff from retaining that shape. _Pina_
fibre is soft and yielding.

Many attempts have been made to draw the hemp fibre by machinery,
but in spite of all strenuous efforts, no one has hitherto succeeded
in introducing into the hemp districts a satisfactory mechanical
apparatus. If the entire length of fibre in a strip of bast could
bear the strain of full tension, instead of having to win