Note 142 — CHAPTER THE FIFTH
Reading edition
Marco Polo describes very well how the bamboo in China is twisted or plaited into cordage. He says: “They have canes of the length of fifteen paces, which they split, in their whole length, into very thin pieces, and these, by twisting them together, they form into ropes three hundred paces long. So skilfully are they manufactured, that they are equal in strength to cordage made of hemp.”