FIBRES
Among the fibres of Brazil which are offered extensive markets is the wonderful paina, known in European markets as kapok, which is thirty-four times lighter than water and fourteen times lighter than cork. Produced chiefly in the Orient, its qualities were many years ago appreciated by German manufacturers who were until recently the largest purchasers of the fibre, using it for life-belts, mattresses, etc. Today an unsatisfied demand for kapok comes from the Société Industrielle et Commerciale du Kapok of Paris and London, which is said to expect enormous calls after the close of the war, when rehabilitated Belgium and northern France will need pillows, mattresses, coverlets, and quantities of other things with the qualities of lightness, warmth, elasticity and impermeability possessed by this renowned fibre. At present world supplies come from Java (best fibre, cleanest, best packed), British India, an inferior grade, as is also that of Central Africa and Senegal; a few years ago, at the suggestion of Germans interested in Venezuelan railways, the kapok tree was introduced there; but when the cotton was sent to Europe it was rejected on account of its condition “the greater part of the bales containing stones, refuse, etc., which sometimes amounted to thirty per cent of the total weight; thus, in spite of the fine quality of Venezuelan kapok, French importers were obliged to cease purchases,”—a lesson for careless exporters.
Many parts of Brazil display this beautiful tree. When the writer was first in Petropolis, in bright May weather, the avenues of that mountain city were gay with the large bright pink flowers of this grey-trunked, spreading exotic. Later, when the bolls ripen, the fibre is collected, sold by the kilo over many counters throughout the country, and used locally for stuffing pillows and cushions.
The price paid by France for paina fibre is about one hundred and forty to one hundred and sixty francs per hundred kilos of good-grade material: she imposes no duties against its entry. Brazil has many good fibres, but their extensive industrial use is as yet limited to aramina, of which coffee bags are made in S. Paulo, a flourishing industry, and the pita which is used by the Indians of Amazonas to make hammocks. These are woven with great art, interspersed along the edges with delicate feathers of gay-coloured Amazonian birds.
Fibre production in a scientific manner and on a commercial scale is only in its infancy in Brazil, but has recently shown interesting development. There are numbers of fine fibres native to the country, yielded not only by a large number of palms, one of which supplies the piassava exported for broom-making, but also by many plants of the aloe tribe. Some of these produce fibres equal in commercial value to the famous henequen (sisal) of Yucatan, upon which the rope-making industries of the United States so largely depend.
Banana fibre is used by the lace-makers of the north for the production of a curious, stiff, shiny lace of fairly intricate workmanship. The best specimens which I possess of this lace were bought at Maceió, but the great home of the lacemaker is Ceará. She usually works with linen or cotton threads, and is to be seen at every cottage door, with her pillow bristling like those of the Devonshire lace-makers, with scores of pins, while she throws the myriad bobbins to and fro, working her pattern on the pins.
Some of the lace produced is quite beautiful, of extreme fineness and intricacy, some of the most prized being the labyrintho, with its darned-in pattern of heavier, silky thread, among the fine filaments of the background. Lace-making is one of the small industries of Brazil which are little known, but deserve a better market.