Note 1213 — WRITING-PENS.

“Their writing-pens are made of reeds or small hard canes of the size of the largest swan-quills, which they cut and slit in the same manner as we do ours; but they give them a much longer nib. These canes or reeds are collected towards Daurac, along the Persian Gulf, in a large fen supplied with water by the river Hellé, a place of Arabia formed by an arm of the Tigris, and another of the Euphrates united. They are cut in March, and, when gathered, are tied up in bundles and laid for six months under a dunghill, where they harden and assume a beautiful polish and lively colour, which is a mixture of yellow and black. None of these reeds are collected in any other place. As they make the best writing-pens, they are transported throughout the whole East. Some of them grow in India, but they are softer and of a paler yellow colour.”—Voyages de Chardin, vol. v. p. 49.