"Is this the tree?" asked the stranger.
"Yes, señor," answered one of the men, with a smile.
"I don't see the mosquito-netting nor the wedding-dress," said the stranger, "and I can't see any joke either."
"If the señor will wait a few minutes he will see all that was promised, and more too," was the reply. "He will see that this tree can bear not only mosquito-netting and wedding-dresses, but fish-nets and neck-scarfs, mourning crape or bridal veils."
The tree was without more ado cut down. Three strips of bark, each about six inches wide and eight feet long, were taken from the trunk and thrown into a stream of water. Then each man took a strip while it was still in the water, and with the point of his knife separated a thin layer of the inner bark from one end of the strip. This layer was then taken in the fingers and gently pulled, whereupon it came away in an even sheet of the entire width and length of the strip of bark. Twelve sheets were thus taken from each strip of bark, and thrown into the water.
A light broke in upon the stranger's mind. Without a doubt these strips were to be sewn together into one sheet. The plan seemed a good one and the fabric thus formed might do, he thought, if no better cloth could be had.
The men were not through yet, however, for when each strip of bark had yielded its twelve sheets, each sheet was taken from the water and gradually stretched sidewise. The spectator could hardly believe his eyes. The sheet broadened and broadened until from a close piece of material six inches wide, it became a filmy cloud of delicate lace, over three feet in width. The astonished gentleman was forced to confess that no human-made loom ever turned out lace which could surpass in snowy whiteness and gossamer-like delicacy that product of nature.
The natural lace is not so regular in formation as the material called illusion, so much worn by ladies in summer; but it is as soft and white, and will bear washing, which is not true of illusion. In Jamaica and Central America, this wonderful lace is put to all the uses mentioned by the native to our traveler, and to more uses besides. In fact, among the poorer people it supplies the place of manufactured cloth, which they can not afford to buy; and the wealthier classes do not by any means scorn it for ornamental use.
Long before the white man found his way to this part of the world, the Indians had known and used this vegetable cloth; so that what was so new and wonderful to King Charles and Governor Sir Thomas Lynch was an old story to the natives. Some time after King Charles received his vegetable necktie, Sir Hans Sloane, whose art-collection and library were the foundation of the British Museum, visited Jamaica. He described the tree fully, and was the first person who told the civilized world about it. The tree is commonly called the lace-bark tree. Its botanical name is Lagetto lintearia.