Free TranslationFree Translation
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

  Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Rattan   Listen
noun
Rattan  n.  (Written also ratan)  (Bot.) One of the long slender flexible stems of several species of palms of the genus Calamus, mostly East Indian, though some are African and Australian. They are exceedingly tough, and are used for walking sticks, wickerwork, chairs and seats of chairs, cords and cordage, and many other purposes.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |





"Rattan" Quotes from Famous Books



... the Bowery. His step is light and easy, and an air pervades him betokening peace and serenity of mind. In one hand he carries a short rattan stick, which he twirls in his fingers carelessly. His little black eyes travel further and faster than his legs, and rove up and down and across the Bowery ceaselessly. He stops in front of a building devoted, according to the signs spread numerously ...
— Tin-Types Taken in the Streets of New York • Lemuel Ely Quigg

... to Plato's Christmas present. All were satisfied with a rattan basket just large enough for him to lie in, with a light open canopy, cushions of cardinal chintz, and a cardinal satin bow to which was fastened a ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten

... To dream of a rattan cane, foretells that you will depend largely upon the judgment of others, and you should cultivate independence in planning ...
— 10,000 Dreams Interpreted • Gustavus Hindman Miller

... four years old Finley was sent to a school for very little children, kept by "Old Ma'am Rand". She was lame and could not walk across the room, but she kept a rattan rod by her side long enough to reach any naughty pupil in the room, and the children were much afraid of having ...
— Ten Boys from History • Kate Dickinson Sweetser

... of bamboo, rattan, willow or light strong pieces of pliant wood such as spruce or hickory. The pieces can be joined with screws or wire, never nails. The length as to breadth to insure safety should be as eight to one, though many ...
— Healthful Sports for Boys • Alfred Rochefort

... roast beef for us all, so we sent word we were all coming. Mrs. Noble, my neighbor worked all day to make a hoop skirt. She shirred and sewed together a piece of cloth about three yards around. In these shirrings she run rattan—a good heavy piece so it would stand out well. I made a black silk basque and skirt. My finery was all ready to put on. One of the neighbor's girls was to stay with the children. The baby had been quite restless, so according ...
— Old Rail Fence Corners - The A. B. C's. of Minnesota History • Various

... them of another industry, her home-made jams and jellies, always contracted for in advance, and at prices dizzyingly beyond the regular market. They sat in comfortable rattan chairs on the veranda, while she told the story of how she had drummed up the jam and jelly trade, dealing only with the one best restaurant and one best club in San Jose. To the proprietor and the steward she had gone with her samples, in long discussions beaten down ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London

... disgrace that it will bring upon his family, and will sometimes rather die than return to it; indeed, as head of a family he could not be received at home.[9] But men do not feel disgraced in being flogged with a rattan at drill. While at the drill they consider themselves, and are considered by us all, as in the relation of scholars to their schoolmasters. Doing away with the rattan at drill had a very bad effect. Young men ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman

... seen Tukukan women come to Bontoc wearing a solid diadem about the hair. It consisted of a rattan foundation encircling the head, covered with blackened beeswax studded with three parallel rows of encircling bright-red seeds. It made a very ...
— The Bontoc Igorot • Albert Ernest Jenks

... called him lousy Scotch son of a whore (for, I being then sentinel in the steerage, heard all), and swab, and lubber, whereby the lieutenant returned the salute, and they jawed together fore and aft a good spell, till at last the captain turned out, and, laying hold of a rattan, came athwart Mr. Bowling's quarter: whereby he told the captain that, if he was not his commander, he would heave him overboard, and demanded satisfaction ashore; whereby in the morning watch, the captain went ashore in the pinnace, and afterwards the lieutenant carried the ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett

... knife blade fitting in the notches serves as the cutting edge. The leaf is held in one hand and the gauge and knife in the other, the edge of the leaf being drawn through the gauge. This is generally made out of the stiff part of the leaf, though, occasionally, of a piece of rattan, bamboo or leather. At best it serves for only a few hours of use, when it is thrown away ...
— Philippine Mats - Philippine Craftsman Reprint Series No. 1 • Hugo H. Miller

... little curious. They first appoint one of their number as head man, who is referred to on every occasion, and who is answerable for the conduct of the whole. They generally come down in numbers of from six to thirty, and sometimes more. Each man carries on his head a kind of basket, made of the rattan cane, in which is contained his shirt, a calabash, some rice, and a bag made of sheep-skin, which holds the alcoran, some rice, bread, a knife, scissors, and other useful articles; also a small pouch in ...
— A Voyage Round the World, Vol. I (of ?) • James Holman

... Hill "Let the Lower Lights be Burning" Liberty Liberty Now and Forever Little Folks Little Jimmy Little Moody Love Love, not the Rattan, Conquers Little Moody Love's ...
— Moody's Anecdotes And Illustrations - Related in his Revival Work by the Great Evangilist • Dwight L. Moody

... down suddenly in the gutter with a squeal, as a bagpipe collapses. The old gentleman rotated on one leg like a dervish, made an ineffectual stoop to clutch his gouty toe and wound up by bringing his rattan cane smartly ...
— Hetty Wesley • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... Bamboo. Bantam. Caddy. Cassowary. Cockatoo. Dugong. Gamboge. Gong. Gutta-percha. Mandarin. Mango. Orang-outang. Rattan. ...
— A Brief History of the English Language and Literature, Vol. 2 (of 2) • John Miller Dow Meiklejohn

... of the cargo in his own hands. With the hearty breeze of his personality he fairly blew Jack onto the porch, where magazines and pamphlets were dropped indiscriminately in a pile on a rattan settee. ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer

... in many places popularly known as smoke-wood, because "our village-boys smoke pieces of the wood as they do of rattan cane; hence, it is sometimes called smoke-wood, ...
— The Folk-lore of Plants • T. F. Thiselton-Dyer

... not bestowed on us more than this single one. Thus 'hussar' is Hungarian; 'caloyer', Romaic; 'mammoth', of some Siberian language;{14} 'tattoo', Polynesian; 'steppe', Tartarian; 'sago', 'bamboo', 'rattan', 'ourang outang', are all, I believe, Malay words; 'assegai'{15} 'zebra', 'chimpanzee', 'fetisch', belong to different African dialects; the last, however, having reached Europe through the channel of ...
— English Past and Present • Richard Chenevix Trench

... described, the loose strips of ash (b, b, Fig. 3) are withdrawn and the framework will appear somewhat as in Fig. 1. In order to make all firm and to prevent the ribs from changing position, as they are apt to do, buy some split cane or rattan, such as is used for making chair-bottoms, and, after soaking it in water for a short time to render it soft and pliable, wind it tightly around the gunwales and ribs where they join, and also interweave ...
— The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1 - 700 Things For Boys To Do • Popular Mechanics

... shape of a fish, the body formed of rattan work, the head and gills of painted matting, with two projections like the antennae of a butterfly. The tail was furnished with long streamers, and little flags were stuck in the body for additional ornament. ...
— Under the Dragon Flag - My Experiences in the Chino-Japanese War • James Allan

... certain famous talismans which would lose their virtue or disappear if they passed out of the family. These talismans are three: the fruit of a creeper called Cui, gathered ages ago at the time of the last deluge, but still fresh and green; a rattan, also very old but bearing flowers that never fade; and lastly, a sword containing a Yan or spirit, who guards it constantly and works miracles with it. The spirit is said to be that of a slave, whose blood chanced to fall upon the blade while it was being forged, and who ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer

... of hazard, but in vain. They offered him arms, a sword and pistols, but he refused them, and said that he had no fear, and, in case of danger, arms would do him no service; and alone, with only a little rattan, which was his usual walking stick, he advanced into the hall to hold parley with the selected, congregated, and enraged villains of the ...
— McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey

... curiously wrought, and as it must be extremely light, bamboo and rattan are almost wholly used, together with ...
— Aeroplanes • J. S. Zerbe***

... boulevards, formed by the angle of the Boulevard des Capucines and the Place de l'Opera. Here, on the "terrace" of the Cafe de la Paix, with its white and gold facade and long French windows, and its innumerable little marble-topped tables and rattan chairs, one may sit for hours at the trifling expense of a few sous, undisturbed even by the tip-seeking garcon, and, if one happens to be a student of human nature, find keen enjoyment in ...
— The Lion and The Mouse - A Story Of American Life • Charles Klein

... effective as it is ingenious. Their fishing tackle consists of a hook, which is a straight piece of hard wood, about the size of a twelve-inch ruler, sharpened at both ends; a ten-foot leader, woven from the tough, stringy bark of the baru tree; and a single length of rattan or cane, fifty feet or so in length, which serves as a line. One end of the leader is attached to a shallow notch cut in the piece of wood, the other end is fastened to the rattan. With a few turns of cotton one end of the stick is then lightly bound to the leader, thus bringing ...
— Where the Strange Trails Go Down • E. Alexander Powell

... once impressed by the amount of room available for passengers. The seating arrangements are similar to the elevated cars, but the subway coaches are longer and wider than the Manhattan, and there are two additional seats on each end. The seats are all finished in rattan. Stationary crosswise seats are provided after the Manhattan pattern, at the center of the car. The longitudinal seats are 17-3/4 inches deep. The space between the longitudinal seats is 4 feet ...
— The New York Subway - Its Construction and Equipment • Anonymous

... hubbub, made up of the cries of mixed-breed porters and carriers, the beating of drums, and the twanging of horns, the neighing of mules, the braying of donkeys, the singing of women, the squalling of children, and the banging of the huge rattan, wielded by the jemadar or leader of the caravans, who beats ...
— Five Weeks in a Balloon • Jules Verne

... till he has effected a breach; a delicate work-basket, at which he labors with enthusiasm, driving his pickaxe bill into it and cutting a big hole. It is most curious to see him set himself to pick a hole, for instance, in a close-woven rattan chair, or a firm piece of matting stretched upon the floor. Selecting, by some esoteric wisdom, the most vulnerable spot, he pushes and pounds and pokes till he gets the tip of his beak under a strand, and then pulls and jerks and ...
— In Nesting Time • Olive Thorne Miller

... did not know myself why I liked so much to loiter behind with her when returning in the evening from our labors; why the tones of her voice made my heartstrings thrill like an AEolian harp; and particularly, why my pulse beat such a furious rattan, when I looked and fingered over her little hand to pick out the cruel nettle-stings and thistles. Thus with me began love and poetry, which at times have been my only, and till within the last twelve months, ...
— Home Life of Great Authors • Hattie Tyng Griswold

... flat-topped desk stood in the centre of the room. Some shelves and books were dimly visible against the wall. Some of the drawers of the desk were open, and there was a litter of papers on the desk, and others were strown in the big rattan chair, some on the floor. Two student-lamps could be dimly distinguished, one on the big desk, another on a little reading-table placed not far from the south window, whose blinds, half open, admitted almost the only light that entered the ...
— Waring's Peril • Charles King

... would quiet you, my lad. He'd bring up his old rattan, and loosen that stiff hide of yours. There, go to sleep, bumpkin, and think yourself lucky you got ...
— The Vast Abyss - The Story of Tom Blount, his Uncles and his Cousin Sam • George Manville Fenn

... oaks nearly 50 feet in girth also occur, screw-pines 50 feet in height with immense crowns of grassy leaves 4 feet long, palms of many kinds, rattan-canes, bamboos, plantains, and tall grasses such as only grow in dense, hot jungles. Gigantic climbers tackle the loftiest trees. One allied to the gourd bears immense yellowish-white pendulous blossoms; another bears curious pitcher-shaped flowers. Vines, peppers, and pothos ...
— The Heart of Nature - or, The Quest for Natural Beauty • Francis Younghusband

... excite, anger. Ramfeezl'd, exhausted. Ramgunshoch, surly. Ram-stam, headlong. Randie, lawless, obstreperous. Randie, randy, a scoundrel, a rascal. Rant, to rollick, to roister. Rants, merry meetings; rows. Rape, v. raep. Raploch, homespun. Rash, a rush. Rash-buss, a clump of rushes. Rashy, rushy. Rattan, rattoon, a rat. Ratton-key, the rat-quay. Raucle, rough, bitter, sturdy. Raught, reached. Raw, a row. Rax, to stretch, to extend. Ream, cream, foam. Ream, to cream, to foam. Reave, to rob. Rebute, rebuff. Red, advised, afraid. Red, rede, to advise, to counsel. ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns

... great abundance upon this Island. They run like Honey-suckles either upon the Ground, or up Trees, as it happens, near Twenty fathom in length. There is a kind of a shell or skin grows over the Rattan, and encloseth it round. Which serves for a Case to cover and defend it, when tender. This Skin is so full of prickles and thorns, that you cannot touch it. As the Rattan growes longer and stronger, this Case growes ripe, and falls off prickles and ...
— An Historical Relation Of The Island Ceylon In The East Indies • Robert Knox

... was sent to a school of boys of all ages, kept by a man named Eastburn, in Library Street, whom I can only recall as a coarse, brutal fiend. From morning to night there was not a minute in which some boy was not screaming under the heavy rattan which he or his brother always held. I myself—infant as I was—for not learning a spelling-lesson properly, was subjected to a caning which would have been cruel if inflicted on a convict or sailor. In the lower story this man's sister kept a girls' school, and the ruffian was ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland

... the back parlour, he found his wife holding a small rattan elevated over little Lizzy in ...
— The Garies and Their Friends • Frank J. Webb

... through the same door at once was a sight not soon to be forgotten. There were felt and straw hats of every possible grade and every shade and color except red, wound with a rich band about the crown and another around the brim. Those of straw were of every imaginable weave, some of rattan, like baskets or veranda furniture. The Mexican male seems to be able to endure sameness of costume below it, but unless his hat is individual, life is a drab blank to him. With his hat off the peon loses seven eights of his impressiveness. ...
— Tramping Through Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras - Being the Random Notes of an Incurable Vagabond • Harry A. Franck

... 6th of November. The houses have a noble appearance, and are built after the form of those in Calcutta. The inhabitants are principally Malays; of them I shall speak more hereafter. After having received on board a quantity of rattan, as private trade for the captain, we made sail and arrived at Macao, on January 26th, 1821, after a long and ...
— Narrative of a Voyage to India; of a Shipwreck on board the Lady Castlereagh; and a Description of New South Wales • W. B. Cramp

... I am afraid my repentance won't last. If I am not whipped, I may have these bad thoughts whenever I play at astronomy, and worse still at the geography game. Whip me, ma, and punish me as I deserve. There's the rattan in the corner: I'll bring ...
— The Best American Humorous Short Stories • Various

... self-willed, capricious little puss. She's been too much indulged. She needs to be brought under discipline," said Gerald, angrily whipping off a blossom with his rattan as they walked ...
— A Romance of the Republic • Lydia Maria Francis Child

... case-bottles, and turn to windward in my cabin when I am carrying on the war on the forecastle, is it? I'll cross your hawse and cut your cable the next time, as sure as my name is Tricing.' After the last dog-watch, I threw myself into my cot all standing, with my rattan alongside of me. About three bells of the first watch, I heard someone go very cunningly, as he thought, into my cabin. I immediately sprung out and seized a man in the act of kissing one of my dear little ones, for it was a case with nine quart bottles. 'Who are you?' said ...
— A Sailor of King George • Frederick Hoffman

... kids, my pretty kids, 'twas touchin' to survey These bearded men, with weppings on, like schoolboys at their play. They'd laugh with glee, and shout to see each other lead the van, And Bob sat up as monitor with a cue for a rattan, Till the Chair gave out "incinerate," and Brown said he'd be durned If any such blamed word as that in ...
— Complete Poetical Works of Bret Harte • Bret Harte

... ship, to uphold the dignity of the service; and the orders of an officer are not to be delayed ten minutes and twenty seconds because a boy has no trousers on." Whereupon the boatswain administered several smart cuts with his rattan upon the boy, proving that it was quite as well that he had put on his trousers before he came on deck. "There," said Mr Biggs, "is a lesson for you, you scamp—and, Mr Easy, it is a lesson for you also," continued the boatswain, walking away ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Frederick Marryat

... at Shanghai their hearts were gladdened by seeing "on the quay a French custom-house official, with his kepi over his ear, his rattan in his hand, dressed in a dark-green tunic, and full of the inquisitiveness of the customs inspector—as martial and as authoritative as in his native land." The appearance of the population here struck our travelers ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 30. September, 1873 • Various

... the—you can't call 'em a nautical name. They've one big, square sail of crazy-quilt work—raw silk, pieces of rubber boots, rattan matting, and grass cloth, all colors, all shapes of patches. They point into the wind and then go sideways; and they don't steer with an oar that Charon discarded thousands of years ago, that's painted ...
— IT and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris

... the instrument of torture, a bow of bamboo wound with rattan to strengthen it. O'Kin took it, ostentatiously bent and displayed its stinging flexibility before the eyes of O'Iwa. The latter closed them. She would cut off all temptation to weakness. At a sign O'Kin roughly ...
— The Yotsuya Kwaidan or O'Iwa Inari - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 1 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville

... the output of one year determined the value of silver as the crop of potatoes does their price for that year! The schoolboy who does not know better deserves the rattan. If the theory were correct, gold in 1856 should have been worth but a fourth what it was in 1848, whereas the largest estimate of its decline in value puts ...
— If Not Silver, What? • John W. Bookwalter

... 11th, the wind continuing to blow as hard as before, I saw the island of Rattan. At 5 p.m. I fired six guns as signals for a pilot, but night coming on with the accustomed bad weather, I wore and stood out to sea. The next morning I bore away for Truxillo, on the Spanish main. At 10 a.m., being close in-shore, the wind shifted, ...
— Hurricane Hurry • W.H.G. Kingston

... nice—yet! He'll be a lot nicer before he's ten years older. I think his education has been neglected. You and I must begin to keep school around this township. There's nothing so nice as education, especially when the school-teacher has a nice long rattan concealed up ...
— The Ghost Breaker - A Novel Based Upon the Play • Charles Goddard

... the adopted son of the family in which she lived and had no difficulty in deceiving her sisters by adoption as to her sex. On coming to St. Louis in 1902 she made chairs and baskets at the American Rattan Works, associating with fellow-workmen on a footing of masculine equality. One day a workman noticed the extreme smallness and dexterity of her hands. "Gee, Bill, you should have been a girl." "How ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... other hand she guarded three small packages. Grandmother wore a gray, changeable silk. The round waist fitted her plump figure smoothly, and the skirt was full and flowing. Her bonnet was made of the same silk shirred on rattan, and was not perched on the top of her head, but covered it well and framed her sweet face with a full, white tulle ruching ...
— The Eye of Dread • Payne Erskine

... jollier wife were there,—she astride on her saddle, as is the sensible fashion of the Notch House,—and, in the long stretching line, we made out Clara Waters and Clem, not together, but Clara with a girl whom she did not know, but who rode better than she, and had whipped both horses with a rattan she had. And who should this girl be but ...
— How To Do It • Edward Everett Hale

... the interference of the superintendent and his assistants, who, with a dexterity that showed them well acquainted with such emergencies, clapped a straight-waistcoat upon each of the antagonists. Richard's efforts at remonstrance only procured him a blow from Captain Seelencooper's rattan, and a tender admonition to hold his tongue, if he valued a ...
— The Surgeon's Daughter • Sir Walter Scott

... homemade tubs and didn' have no wash boa'ds. We had a block an battlin' stick. We put our clo'es in soak then took 'em out of soak an lay them on the block an take the battling stick an battle the dirt out of 'em. We mos'ly used rattan vines for clotheslines an they made the bes ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves: Volume II, Arkansas Narratives, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration

... ugliness by its summer-sister of the same date, the green silk calash,—that funniest and quaintest of all New England feminine headgear,—a great sunshade that could not be called a bonnet, always made of bright green silk shirred on strong lengths of rattan or whalebone, and extendible after the fashion of a chaise top. It could be drawn out over the face by a little green ribbon or "bridle" that was fastened to the extreme front at the top; or it could be pushed in a close-gathered mass on the back ...
— Sabbath in Puritan New England • Alice Morse Earle

... where alone their branches grow, are laced into one another, so as to form a vault impenetrable to the rays of the sun. Under this vault, and among those fine trees, prolific nature has given birth to a crowd of climbing plants of a most remarkable description. The rattan and the flexible liana mount up to the topmost branches, and re-descending to the earth, take fresh root, receive new sustenance, and then remount anew, and at various distances they join themselves to the friendly trunks of their supporting columns, and thus they ...
— Adventures in the Philippine Islands • Paul P. de La Gironiere

... custom in the public schools of 1870 to punish boys by making them hold out the palms of their hands, upon which the principal would inflict blows with a rattan. The first time Edward was punished in this way, his hand became so swollen he wondered at a system of punishment which rendered him incapable of writing, particularly as the discerning principal had chosen the boy's right hand upon which to rain the blows. Edward was told to sit ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok (1863-1930)

... slightly sweet liquid, with an agreeable taste, which rapidly becomes acid under the influence of the heat. A flowering or fruit-bearing stalk, which has not been incised before, is chosen and encircled with several rings of rope or rattan. The stalk is then cut and a bamboo vessel called a bombn is hung to receive the sap which escapes during the night. This liquid is valuable as a drink for those who are debilitated, suffering from pulmonary catarrh, and even for consumptives, who ...
— The Medicinal Plants of the Philippines • T. H. Pardo de Tavera

... is taught, and information given about raffia, rattan, and other necessary materials. There is a chapter on caning chairs, and one by Neltje Blanchan on What the ...
— A Mother's List of Books for Children • Gertrude Weld Arnold

... Banka, or even one of these vicious thick squalls, from the distant Sumatra coast, would make a sudden sally upon the group, enveloping it for a couple of hours in whirlwinds and bluish-black murk of a particularly sinister aspect. Then, with the lowered rattan- screens rattling desperately in the wind and the bungalow shaking all over, Freya would sit down to the piano and play fierce Wagner music in the flicker of blinding flashes, with thunderbolts falling all round, enough to make ...
— 'Twixt Land & Sea • Joseph Conrad

... down the street, and twirled his rattan, as he went. The coal-digger was abrupt and distant in his greeting, going ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 50, December, 1861 • Various

... confident that he still had some well inclined to him in the village. He arrived at night, and waiting until the morning of January 3, entered the convent at the time that the venerable minister was about to go out with a rattan staff in his hand in order to go to confess a sick man. Sumulay attacked him with a short sword, without any waste of arguments. The poor religious, seeing himself involved in the worst kind of a conflict, but infused with valor ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 41 of 55, 1691-1700 • Various

... rapped the man across the face with his light rattan cane. Venting a howl of rage, the Eureka partisan leaped forward. Calhoun Bennett, quick as a flash, drew a small derringer and fired; and the man went down in a heap. Superbly nonchalant, Bennett, without a glance at his victim, turned away, the ring of spectators ...
— The Gray Dawn • Stewart Edward White

... their usual comforts, and all sorts of improvements made in equipment. There were beautiful patent leather collars stuffed with caribou hair and faced with rattan, so there should be no chafing of the neck; they were as "fine and becoming," the Woman said, "as feather boas." All extra weight was eliminated. The harness was of thin linen webbing; snaps and buckles gave ...
— Baldy of Nome • Esther Birdsall Darling

... rock had no need of fire in those days, for the sun beat down on them strongly, and there was no night; it was not until many, many years had elapsed that an old man named Laki Oi invented a method of obtaining fire by means of friction produced by pulling a strip of rattan rapidly back and forth beneath a piece of dry wood. This process of making fire he called Musa, and it is still the only method used in obtaining fire for ceremonials, such as the naming of a child, ...
— Folk-lore in Borneo - A Sketch • William Henry Furness

... he was sometimes to be seen on an open bench, with spectacles on nose, conning over the newspapers to a circle of village politicians, explaining military terms, and aiding the comprehension of his hearers by lines drawn on the ground with the end of his rattan. On other occasions, he was surrounded by a bevy of school-boys, whom he sometimes drilled to the manual, and sometimes, with less approbation on the part of their parents, instructed in the mystery of artificial fire-works; for in the case of public rejoicings, ...
— A Legend of Montrose • Sir Walter Scott

... is old-fashioned in these days to smite with the rattan as did the mighty of yore. The custom certainly lived a long time. The author of the Proverbs spoke of the practise to the parents of his generation, and there is no mistaking the meaning of his words. He spoke with authority, ...
— Explanation of Catholic Morals - A Concise, Reasoned, and Popular Exposition of Catholic Morals • John H. Stapleton

... return. Brass rings were the great ornament in this village—as they are, indeed, among the Dyaks generally. Many of the women had their arms completely covered with them, as well as their legs from the ankle to the knee. Their petticoats were fastened to a coil of rattan, stained red, round their bodies. They also wore coils of brass wire, girdles of small silver coins, and sometimes broad ...
— Blown to Bits - or, The Lonely Man of Rakata • Robert Michael Ballantyne

... and in Province Wellesley; also in brick-making, felling timber, burning lime, and reclaiming mangrove swamps. The ground on which some portion of the present town is built was filled up by convict labour. Much later on, however, in the Fifties, rattan work was introduced into the prison, and easy chairs, lounging chairs, baskets, and other articles of a very substantial quality were manufactured and sold to the public at a higher price than that for which the same articles could be purchased ...
— Prisoners Their Own Warders - A Record of the Convict Prison at Singapore in the Straits - Settlements Established 1825 • J. F. A. McNair

... always valued, and they used to say we had so many more than we could possibly want in the pantry, that of course we would give them some. To their honour be it said, they never stole one, and were invariably refused, for we had not any more than we wanted. The Dyaks hung their plates in loops of rattan very ingeniously against the walls of their houses; but a plantain-leaf folded up is more often used by them in lieu of plates, and they could not have a better substitute. I never enjoyed a meal so much as some cold rice and sardines eaten off ...
— Sketches of Our Life at Sarawak • Harriette McDougall

... let us enjoy the peace of God while it lasts." He stretched himself on his back on the rattan lounge, and folded his hands on that part of his person which illustrated, geographically speaking, the great Continental Divide. The locked hands rose softly up and down. His wife fanned ...
— A Touch Of Sun And Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote

... fragrance of the pines and balsam firs that stood in great green tubs about the walls. On the floor was a grass rug of green and wood-colour, and against the walls stood several long low settees of brown rattan, backs and seats cushioned in cretonne of soft greens and cream-colour, and a few chairs of like pattern were scattered about. Curtains of cream-coloured cheesecloth, with a stencilled design of pine cones in shaded browns, draped the windows, and in the wide fireplace a fire ...
— The Torch Bearer - A Camp Fire Girls' Story • I. T. Thurston

... "Harlot's Progress," finished in 1733 (George II.), is laid in Bridewell. There, in a long, dilapidated, tiled shed, a row of female prisoners are beating hemp on wooden blocks, while a truculent-looking warder, with an apron on, is raising his rattan to strike a poor girl not without some remains of her youthful beauty, who seems hardly able to lift the heavy mallet, while the wretches around leeringly deride her fine apron, laced hood, and figured gown. There are two degraded men among the female ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury

... of the 80th went to the northward on discovery, attended by the canoe. They crossed over to the other island. Saw a wild beast in the bush of the panther kind. Found some bundles of pigs' heads, tied with cane, laid together in heaps, and stones suspended from the trees by rattan. They supposed this to be some religious ceremony of the natives. They found a quantity of excellent oysters on the rocks. They made a fire, ...
— The Wreck on the Andamans • Joseph Darvall

... filled the various offices are: Vice presidents, Margaret Campbell and Susan Humphreys, corresponding secretaries, May Gill and Catharine Shaw; auditors, A. A. Rattan, Mary Cowen and Laura A. Huffines; superintendent of press work, Margaret Furlong; superintendent of literature, Hester Tate; members national executive committee, Caroline B. Norcross ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various

... impressively imparted through the sense of feeling. That his manner and means were impressive you may well believe, when I say that I yet have a vivid recollection of a bucket with an inch or two of water in it near his desk. In it stood an assortment of rattan rods, their size when selected for use ranging in the ratio of the enormity, of the offence or the age of ...
— Shadow and Light - An Autobiography with Reminiscences of the Last and Present Century • Mifflin Wistar Gibbs

... picked well His footsteps with his rattan; Oh! you ne'er could see the least speck On the shoes of Captain Paton. And on entering the coffee-room About two, all men did know They would see him with his Courier In the middle of the row. Oh! we ne'er shall see the like of ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various

... said, sinking into a rattan chair tied up with blue ribbons, like an over-dressed baby, "that these rooms had an air which suggested youth and beauty. I don't wonder your heart is ...
— All Aboard - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry

... culture of neither Malay nor Negrito does not provide an explanation. One curious peculiarity, however, is an aptitude and taste for decorative carving, applied to the door posts, lintels, and other parts of his house, to the planting sticks of the woman, to the rattan frame of his deer-hide rain-hat, etc. But except for this there seems little that is not an inheritance from the two above strains or a development due to isolation in these mountainous forests that have long been ...
— The Negrito and Allied Types in the Philippines and The Ilongot or Ibilao of Luzon • David P. Barrows

... over accordingly. Our appearance in the long empty room at that early hour caused visible consternation amongst the China boys. But Hollis led the way to one of the tables between the windows screened by rattan blinds. A brilliant half-light trembled on the ceiling, on the whitewashed walls, bathed the multitude of vacant chairs and tables in a ...
— Within the Tides • Joseph Conrad

... me whether he was acquainted with any place in that neighborhood called the "Old Dock." The man looked at me wonderingly at first, and then seeing I was apparently sane, and quite civil into the bargain, he whipped his well-polished boot with his rattan, pulled up his silver-laced coat-collar, and initiated me into a knowledge ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville

... Only the natives could gather it, as the white man contracted the jungle fever as soon as he subjected himself to the climate in which it grew. But within the last fifty or seventy-five years enterprising men have begun the cultivation of the rattan palm, and have met with so much success that now there are a number of factories in the United States making the reed and rattan of commerce, while Germany and Belgium export to us the ...
— Construction Work for Rural and Elementary Schools • Virginia McGaw

... what terrible castigation he was going to give me, I never knew; for at that moment a man, passing along the sidewalk, stopped and glanced in at us. He was a large man, poorly dressed, and on his back was a great load of rattan and bamboo stands, chairs, and screens. He looked at the house as if debating whether or not he should come in and try to sell some of ...
— The Iron Heel • Jack London

... pretty sure he did, because for many a day after that he was not seen, and some thought he had died of indigestion by swallowing those pirates' heads. Howsomdever, he wasn't dead after all, as poor Bob Rattan, an old messmate of mine, found out to his cost. Just about two months had gone by, and Bob one evening was trying to swim from his ship to the shore, when Old Tom caught, him by the leg and hauled him to the bottom. His head was washed ashore three days afterwards, bitten clean off, ...
— Will Weatherhelm - The Yarn of an Old Sailor • W.H.G. Kingston

... a sort of high constable and school-master, wearing citizen's clothes, and known by his official rattan. He it is whom all sailors hate. His is the universal duty of a universal informer and hunter-up of delinquents. On the berth-deck he reigns supreme; spying out all grease-spots made by the various ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville

... he was so hastily and unexpectedly charged, should have been clogged with some condition of compromise. No such proposal, however, was made on the part of the doughty Sir Bingo, who eyed his friend as he hastily snatched up his rattan to depart, with a dogged look of obstinacy, expressive, to use his own phrase, of a determined resolution to come up to the scratch; and when he heard the Captain's parting footsteps, and saw the door shut behind him, ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott

... house. At the alarm of fire, all the men in the house—Tungku Long, Tungku Itam, Tungku Pa, Tungku Chik, and Che' Mat Tukang—had rushed out, but all of them had gone back again to remove their effects, with the exception of Tungku Long himself, who stood looking at the flames. He was armed with a rattan-work shield, and an ancient and very pliable native sword. As he stood gazing upwards, quite unaware that any trouble, other than that involved by the conflagration, was toward, To' Kaya rushed upon him and stabbed him with his spear in ...
— In Court and Kampong - Being Tales and Sketches of Native Life in the Malay Peninsula • Hugh Clifford

... and started out one of the big entrances. As he did so he noticed a timid country girl, dressed ridiculously behind the fashions, and wearing an old-fashioned bonnet. She carried a rattan suitcase and ...
— Traffic in Souls - A Novel of Crime and Its Cure • Eustace Hale Ball

... thought that it was very singular that the Jamesons had no stuffed furniture, but Louisa and I did not feel so. We had often wished that we could afford to change the haircloth furniture, which I had had when I was married, for some pretty rattan or plain wood chairs. Louisa and I rather fancied the Jamesons' style of house-furnishing when we call there. It was rather odd, certainly, from our village standpoint, and we were not accustomed to see bare floors if people could possibly buy a carpet; ...
— The Jamesons • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... touched the flesh. They used short spears and certain shields which they called carazas. They carried certain knives with two sharp edges, which were short, like daggers. They used jackets or doublets of well-twisted cord, and under those others of rattan, a kind of osier. By means of these they turn aside the sharp, keen bamboos which, of the length of two brazas, are hurled in naval battles, with which they ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXI, 1624 • Various

... round her; she was staring up at a white cloud, and swore that she could plainly see an angel with a white sword, and some of the others cried that they saw it too. I should like to have been a gunner's mate with a stout rattan, and to have laid it over their shoulders, to give them something else to think about for a few hours. It is downright pitiful to see such cowards. At the corner of one street there was a quack, vending pills and perfumes that he warranted to keep away the Plague, and the people ran up ...
— When London Burned • G. A. Henty

... d'hote, and sent cards out—you know. You think he had one meal in the house? Give the thing a trial? Not once. He has got hold now of a Madras cook—a blamed fraud that I hunted out of my cookhouse with a rattan. He was not fit to cook for white men. No, not for the white men's dogs either; but, see, any damned native that can boil a pot of rice is good enough for Mr. Falk. Rice and a little fish he buys for a few cents from the fishing boats outside ...
— Falk • Joseph Conrad

... only field in which New Guinea natives have shown much skill and ingenuity is in the manufacture of weapons. One of these is known as a Man-catcher, and was invented by the natives of Hood Bay, but all over the vast island this loop of rattan cane is the constant companion of head-hunters. The peculiarity of the weapon is the deadly spike inserted ...
— Adventures in New Guinea • James Chalmers

... happened, a wise man had told the people that they must build a large raft. [116] They did as he commanded and cut many large trees, until they had enough to make three layers. These they bound tightly together, and when it was done they fastened the raft with a long rattan cord to a big pole in ...
— Philippine Folk Tales • Mabel Cook Cole

... kerchief fringed and tasseled with blue: a large ring hung from either ear; a pair of bracelets adorned her wrists; rings with bezels of priceless gems were on her fingers; and she hent in hand a long rod of rattan cane which she thrust into the frying pan, saying, "O fish! O fish! be ye constant to your covenant?" When the cookmaiden saw this apparition she swooned away. The young lady repeated her words a second time and a third time, and at last the fishes raised their heads from the pan, ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton

... was a rattan about forty feet long. At the "business end," as Scott called it, they attached a float to keep it on the top of the water. The steamer just crawled along on the river in order not to disturb the game, though the reptiles were accustomed ...
— Four Young Explorers - Sight-Seeing in the Tropics • Oliver Optic

... undecided manner, as though hesitating to attack. My spirits fell again at this, for with all my inexperience I knew her to be a better sailer than the Black Moll. Her master, as Griggs remarked, "was no d—d slouching lubber, and knew a yardarm from a rattan cane." ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... their slightly-constructed huts; the leaves of some species are formed into fans, hats, and parasols; others are written on, in the same manner that we write on paper; artificial flowers are made of the pith of some; the light and supple rattan walking-cane is the slender shoot of another kind; and solid and useful utensils are made of the shell of the cocoa-nut. The fibres of the Date Palm are formed into ropes and twine; a liquor is drawn from the trunk, called palm wine; the trunks of the old trees furnish a hard ...
— A Catechism of Familiar Things; Their History, and the Events Which Led to Their Discovery • Benziger Brothers

... Governor had diminished the floggings, forbidden the public infliction of the punishment, given a reprimand in cases where "by mistake" or by an evasion of the letter of the law extra strokes had been given to criminals, exchanged "the regulation cat" for the rattan, abolished the preliminary starvation-diet and the branding, improved the prisons, &c. All this was now loudly complained of by the European merchants, but was approved by the Chinese subjects in the colony, ...
— The Voyage of the Vega round Asia and Europe, Volume I and Volume II • A.E. Nordenskieold

... ports—Singapore, Penang, and Malacca—aggregates about six hundred million dollars yearly. About two-thirds of this sum represents the business of Singapore. Tin constitutes about half the exports, a large share going to the United States. Spices, rubber, gutta-percha, tapioca, and rattan constitute the remaining trade. Rice, cotton cloth, and opium are ...
— Commercial Geography - A Book for High Schools, Commercial Courses, and Business Colleges • Jacques W. Redway

... this at any other time, because they imagine that it would cause the death of somebody. Meantime the women have gone into the forest to get bark, which they beat into bark-cloth and make into mourning caps for themselves. The men busy themselves with plaiting armlets and leglets of rattan, in which some red rags are stuck. Large blue and white beads are strung on a red cord and worn round the neck. Further, the hair is shorn in sign of mourning. Mourners are forbidden to eat anything cooked in a pot. Sago-porridge, which is a staple food with some of the natives of ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer

... evening, the Discipline (as they call it) of Leathern thongs, ten to a handful, and three blood-knots in each. I grew sick of being tawed for offences I had never committed, and so made bold one morning to try and strangle the Mother of the Workroom, who sat over us with a rattan, while we carded wool. Upon which I was bound to a post, and received more stripes, my lad, in an hour than ever your Schoolmaster gave you in a week. That same night I tried to burn the prison down; and then they put me in the dark dungeon called ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 1 of 3 • George Augustus Sala

... separated by dirt-filled cracks, but were polished into a dark richness by long rubbing with petroleum and banana leaves. The furnishings consisted of a wardrobe, a table, a washstand, several chairs, and a Filipino four-poster bed with a mattress of plaited rattan such as we find in cane-seated chairs. A snow-white valence draped the bed. The mattress was covered with a petate, or native mat, and there were two pillows—a big, fat, bolstery one, and another, called abrazador, which is used for ...
— A Woman's Impression of the Philippines • Mary Helen Fee

... in some country homes. It is made of the French willow, and is not so cheap but is stronger than rattan. Best rockers in this material sell at about $20. They are hardly to be considered in the permanent furnishings of the home, though there is no denying their cleanliness, coolness, ...
— The Complete Home • Various

... napkins but it could not stand wear and washing. Our sanitary engineers have set us to drinking out of sharp-edged paper cups and we blot our faces instead of wiping them. Twine is spun of paper and furniture made of the twine, a rival of rattan. Cloth and matting woven of paper yarn are being used for burlap and grass in the making of ...
— Creative Chemistry - Descriptive of Recent Achievements in the Chemical Industries • Edwin E. Slosson

... controversy by the last appeal. During this moment of suspense, the former had squared his firm-built frame in front of his gigantic opponent, and there were very vehement passings and counter-passings, in the way of gestures from four athletic arms, each of which was knobbed, like a fashionable rattan, with a lump of bones, knuckles, and sinews, that threatened annihilation to any thing that should oppose them. As the general clamour, however, gradually abated, the chief reasoners began to be heard; and, as if content to rely on their respective ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper

... $615.20. I sat down at the table in my bedroom where I keep my accounts and wrote out a check to Roger Mifflin for $400. I put in plenty of curlicues after the figures so that no one could raise the check into $400,000; then I got out my old rattan suit case and put in some clothes. The whole business didn't take me ten minutes. I came downstairs to find Mrs. McNally looking sourly at the Parnassus from ...
— Parnassus on Wheels • Christopher Morley

... have large horns." Not long after his dogs caught some deer, and he took their livers and he let them go again. Not long after he arrived at his house and he called Aponibolinayen, "Come and get the liver, which you wish to eat." Aponibolinayen said to him, "Put it in the rattan hanger." Ligi went back to the balaua, and Aponibolinayen used magic so that Ligi slept. While he was asleep she went to the kitchen to throw away the livers of the deer, and the dogs went to eat ...
— Traditions of the Tinguian: A Study in Philippine Folk-Lore • Fay-Cooper Cole

... Drowne, that will do!" cried the jolly captain, tapping the log with his rattan. "I bespeak this very piece of oak for the figure-head of the Cynosure. She has shown herself the sweetest craft that ever floated, and I mean to decorate her prow with the handsomest image that the skill of man can cut out of timber. And, Drowne, you are ...
— Mosses from an Old Manse and Other Stories • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... fifth day the old man said he must go home. Then the sparrow brought out two baskets made of plaited rattan, such as are used in traveling and carried on men's shoulders. Placing them before their guest, the sparrow said, "Please accept a ...
— Japanese Fairy World - Stories from the Wonder-Lore of Japan • William Elliot Griffis

... a large station, and considered very unhealthy during and after the rains. From it the road passed through some pretty lanes, with groves of planted Guava and a rattan palm (Calamus), the first I had seen. Though no hills are nearer than the Himalaya, from the constant alteration of the river-beds, the road undulates remarkably for this part of India, and a jungly vegetation ensues, consisting of the above plants, with the yellow-flowered Cactus replacing ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker

... four Samuel was sent to an infant school kept by an old lady, who being lame, was unable to leave her chair, but carried her authority to the remotest parts of her dominion by the help of a long rattan. Samuel, like the rest, had felt the sudden apparition of this monitor. Having scratched a portrait of the dame upon a chest of drawers with the point of a pin, he was called out and summarily punished. Years later, when he became notable, the drawers ...
— Heroes of the Telegraph • J. Munro

... the absence of a barb they cannot be so effective as those of European make: indeed these last were at Cape York preferred by the natives themselves. The line is neatly made from the tough fibres of the rattan, which are first scraped to the requisite degree of fineness with a sharp-edged Cyrena shell, then twisted and laid up ...
— Voyage Of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Vol. 2 (of 2) • John MacGillivray

... the skipper said, 'you've been shamming for the last six weeks. I reckon I'll sharpen you up now,' and he hit me a heavy blow with a rattan he held in his hand. There was a cry of 'Shame!' from some of the men. As quick as thought the skipper pulled a pistol from ...
— By Sheer Pluck - A Tale of the Ashanti War • G. A. Henty

... obliged to dance, had great ulcers on his legs from the wounds caused by the cords with which he had been bound when he was tortured with water, and was at first unable to raise his feet from the floor; but Villa threatened him with a rattan until he finally did so. This caused the sores on his legs to burst open so that ...
— The Philippines: Past and Present (vol. 1 of 2) • Dean C. Worcester

... he said; the servant was terribly afraid of this little blond man, with a strange voice, and a fist harder than a vice. He went on very rapidly this time, his eye fixed on M. Lecoq's rattan. ...
— The Mystery of Orcival • Emile Gaboriau

... he has one—no!" he said. "Not with anything more dangerous than a piece of rattan. I would not mind polishing off his dainty hide with that! Besides, if I quarrelled with him, who made me? You! He sat too near you, and you not only talked with him but looked at him. What business had you to ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford

... carpet, the window curtains should follow it up in lighter tones or contrast with it. The curtains may correspond with the coverings of the chairs, sofa, mantel and table draperies in color and fabric. If the furniture is of wicker, bamboo or rattan, the curtains should be of Japanese or any kind of Oriental goods. Curtains of muslin (either white or tinted), gay-colored chintzes, lace or dotted Swiss muslin, looped back with bright-toned ribbons, look very pretty and are appropriate for the sitting-room ...
— The Ladies Book of Useful Information - Compiled from many sources • Anonymous

... rattan came, Big L was made to lie face down on the table, two cadets seized his hands and drew him forward, two others took him by the feet so that his body lay stretched out lengthwise. The tallow candles were taken from the table and lifted up high, and the ...
— Good Blood • Ernst Von Wildenbruch

... Shetland, a coal-black one, was behaving as peculiarly as it was being treated. Ropes were attached to its forelegs, each rope held by an assistant, who jerked on the same stoutly when a third man, standing in front of the pony, tapped it on the knees with a short, stiff whip of rattan. Whereupon the pony went down on its knees in the sawdust in a genuflection to the man with the whip. The pony did not like it, sometimes so successfully resisting with spread, taut legs and mutinous head-tossings, as to overcome ...
— Michael, Brother of Jerry • Jack London

... languages English was taught as well as Spanish, the entire waking period being devoted to the language allotted for the day, and whoever so far forgot as to utter a word in any other tongue was punished by having to wear a rattan handcuff. The use and meaning of this modern police device had to be explained to the boys, for Spain still ...
— Lineage, Life, and Labors of Jose Rizal, Philippine Patriot • Austin Craig

... characteristic of this race, which has afflicted and still afflicts the priests. These people refuse to do anything thoroughly; and in order to get them to perform what is ordered of them, one must use the lash and the rattan—whence comes the saying of a holy bishop of these islands, namely, that on that day when was born the Indian, next to him was born the rattan, with which the dust was to be beaten from his back. And if we ministers have experienced this after ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXIII, 1629-30 • Various

... he exclaimed, leaping up and examining the chair. He found a great deal of rattan thrown away by the East India merchant ships, whose cargoes were wrapped in it. He began the manufacture of rattan chairs and other furniture, and has astonished the world by what he has done with what was before thrown away. While this man was dreaming about some far off success, he at that very ...
— How to Succeed - or, Stepping-Stones to Fame and Fortune • Orison Swett Marden

... All the village having been burned, together with some houses near a cross, the latter did not catch fire on the front side facing the street, but only at the back. And although the rattan that fastened the arm of the cross was burned, the arm did not fall, or destroy the shape of the cross. And while there was not a single stick left unburned in the village, the fire did not leave mark or stain on the front of the cross, but it retained the same color ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XIV., 1606-1609 • Various

... game besides the goal posts (which are generally of wood or papier-mache to prevent serious accidents) are the balls and mallets. The balls are of willow 3 1/8 inches in diameter, and weigh 5 ounces. The mallet sticks are of rattan cane, and from 4 to 4 1/2 feet long, set into square heads beveled at the sides and about 8 inches long and 2 wide. The handles are leather-wrapped to insure a good grip. As to the ponies, no blinkers are used, so that they may have a clear sight of ...
— Entertainments for Home, Church and School • Frederica Seeger

... said the watchman. 'He gits cool sometimes as sudden as he gits hot.' So Bill Nevins, my engineer, who was workin' the h'ister, and I went up. The old feller was sittin' on the piazza in a big rattan chair. ...
— The Underdog • F. Hopkinson Smith

... my chair, with my rattan in my hand. "Begone, you old thief," cried I; and hardly were the words out of my mouth, before Mr Emmanuel travelled out of the room, and I never saw him afterwards. I was pleased with myself for having done this act of honesty, and for the first time for a long while, I ate ...
— Japhet, In Search Of A Father • Frederick Marryat

... the government Sikhs had to be appealed to, and Kampong Glam in Singapore searched from the great market to the courtyards of Sultan Ali. It was useless to whip him, for whippings seemed only to make Baboo grow. He would lisp serenely as Aboo Din took down the rattan withe from above the door, "Baboo baniak jahat!" (Baboo very bad!) and there was something so charmingly impersonal in all his mischief, that we came between his own brown body and the rod, time and again. There ...
— Tales of the Malayan Coast - From Penang to the Philippines • Rounsevelle Wildman

... now done in the Dismal Swamp, and it will again soon become a howling wilderness, a hiding place for the bears, wild-cats, snakes and everything hideous. The bamboo and rattan will rule supreme, and, like the banyan tree, will form an impenetrable jungle. But a few years will be required for its accomplishment, and without an axe you could not move ...
— The Dismal Swamp and Lake Drummond, Early recollections - Vivid portrayal of Amusing Scenes • Robert Arnold

... Severe and smileless, he that runs may read The stern disciple of Geneva's creed Decent and slow, behold his solemn march; Silent he enters through yon crowded arch. A livelier bearing of the outward man, The light-hued gloves, the undevout rattan, Now smartly raised or half profanely twirled,— A bright, fresh twinkle from the week-day world,— Tell their plain story; yes, thine eyes behold A cheerful Christian from the liberal fold. Down the chill street that ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... go where the strawberry grows on its straw, And the gooseberry on its goose; Where the catnip tree is climbed by the cat As she crouches for her prey— The guileless and unsuspecting rat On the rattan bush at play. ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various

... tell you?" said Kitwater, as he looked about the camp and could discover no traces of their two native servants. "It was one of our prowling rascals you saw, and when he comes back I'll teach him to come spying on us. If I know anything of the rattan, he won't do ...
— My Strangest Case • Guy Boothby

... Flora, may now be added Calamus; of which a species (discovered without fructification, by Sir Joseph Banks, during the celebrated voyage of Captain Cook) has at length been detected bearing fruit in the vicinity of Endeavour River. The existence of this palm, or rattan, on the East Coast, to which it is confined, seems almost to be limited to an area within the parallels of 15 and 17 degrees South; should, however, its range be more extensive, it is southerly one or two degrees, in which direction a remarkable primary granitic formation of the coast continues, ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia] [Volume 2 of 2] • Phillip Parker King

... rather track, that the blacks had made, with the greatest difficulty. It was all very well for the troopers, who had stripped, but our clothes hitched up on a thorn at every other step. One of our most provoking enemies was the lawyer vine, a kind of rattan enclosed in a rough husk, covered with thousands of crooked prickles. These, with their outer covering, are about an inch and a quarter in diameter, and extend to an enormous distance, running up to the tops of lofty trees, and from thence either descending or pushing ...
— Australian Search Party • Charles Henry Eden

... making so many mistakes. You must keep what I have told you about my new clothes a secret if you don't I shall not divulge any more secrets to you. I have got quite a library. The Master has not taken his rattan out since the vacation. Your little kitten is as well and as playful as ever and I hope you are to for I am sure I love you as well as ever. Why is grass like a mouse you cant guess that he he he ho ho ho ha ha ...
— Four Famous American Writers: Washington Irving, Edgar Allan Poe, • Sherwin Cody

... was Mr. Sanborn's rattan, and what to do about it he did not know; until coming to school one morning very early with another youth of the same disposition, they cut it into sections and smoked it. After this he was in great terror ...
— Sketches from Concord and Appledore • Frank Preston Stearns

... is built of timber at the lower part, the upper is of bamboo, rattan, and kedgang (the dried leaf of the Nepa palm). Outside the bends, about a foot from the water line, runs a strong gallery, in which the rowers sit cross-legged. At the after-part of the boat is a cabin for the chief who commands, and the whole of the vessel is surmounted by a strong ...
— Borneo and the Indian Archipelago - with drawings of costume and scenery • Frank S. Marryat

... sable. F. was rather more done up by the hard morning, and so did not go along. The guide wore still his red tarboosh, his dark short jacket, his saffron yellow nether garment—it was not exactly a skirt—and his silver-headed rattan cane. The only change he made was to tuck up the skirt, leaving his long legs bare. It hardly seemed altogether a suitable costume for hunting; but he seemed to ...
— African Camp Fires • Stewart Edward White

... not nowadays John Campbell's wear but kerseymore knee-breeches. He had a figured vest strewn deep with snuff that he kept loose in a pocket (the regiment's gold mull was his purse), and a scratch wig of brown sat askew on his bullet head, raking with a soldier's swagger. He had his long rattan on the table before him, and now and then he would lift its tasseled head and beat time lightly to the chorus of Dugald MacNicol's song. Dugald was Major once of the 1st Royals; he had carried the sword in the Indies, East and West, and in the bloody Peninsula, and came home with a ...
— Gilian The Dreamer - His Fancy, His Love and Adventure • Neil Munro

... are most tastefully and comfortably furnished; the floors are either of hard wood covered with rugs or with fine Indian matting, while there is a preference, as in most warm countries, for rattan or bamboo furniture; there are the usual accessories of bric-a-brac, pictures, books, and curios from all parts of the world, for these ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... is made out of bamboo or rattan, and this is attached to the center of a long bamboo pole, which is suspended across one corner of the room (Fig. 1, No. 2). The pole bends with each movement of the child, and thus it rocks itself to sleep. Another device in which small children are kept is known as galong-galong. This consists ...
— The Tinguian - Social, Religious, and Economic Life of a Philippine Tribe • Fay-Cooper Cole

... pretty for a mere dinner card." Lila dropped into a rattan chair and idly tossed the corks from hand to hand. "Aren't you planning a long time ahead? Your family knows exactly what to send in a box. That last was the most delicious thing! I suppose we'll just ask our crowd of freshmen, Berta and Gertrude ...
— Beatrice Leigh at College - A Story for Girls • Julia Augusta Schwartz

... be done to-day. I met with Mr. Hawly, who was removing his things from Mr. Bowyer's, where he has lodged a great while, and I took him and W. Bowyer to the Swan and drank, and Mr. Hawly did give me a little black rattoon,—[Probably an Indian rattan cane.]—painted and gilt. Home by water. This day the Duke of Gloucester died of the small-pox, by the great negligence of ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys

... "my Daughter." Twice her mother "Requested me to Chastise her for Unchristian Temper," which chastisement he seems to have administered with thoroughness and a rattan, in his office. On the second occasion, "I whip'd her Severely & did at the same Time admonish her to Ask Pardon of God. Whereupon she Yell'd Aloud & did Seize the Calf of my Leg & Bite me, Causing me Great Physical ...
— A Woman Named Smith • Marie Conway Oemler



Words linked to "Rattan" :   malacca, Calamus rotang, rattan palm, calamus, cane, rattan cane, switch, ratan



Copyright © 2024 e-Free Translation.com