Mats can be woven with ease when there is abundance of string, or some equivalent for it (see " String "), in the following manner :
A, B, are two pegs driven into the ground and standing about a foot out of it. A stake, A B, is lashed across them ; a row of pegs, E, are driven into the ground, parallel to A B, and about 6 inches apart. Two sets of strings are then tied to A B ; one set are fastened by their loose ends into clefts, in the pegs E, and the other set are fastened to the stick, c D. If there be ten strings in all, then 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, are tied to c D, and 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, to A B. By alternately raising and depressing c n, and by pushing in a handful of rushes between the two sets of strings after each of its movements, and, finally, by patting them home with a flat stick, this rough sort of weaving is carried on very successfully. Mats are also plaited in breadths, and the breadths are stitched together, side by side. Or a thicker kind of mat may be made by taking a wisp of straw and working it in the same way in which straw beehives are constructed. Straw is worked more easily after being damped and beaten with a mallet.
Malay hitch.-I know no better name for the wonderfully simple way (shown in the figure) of attaching together wisps of straw, rods, laths, reeds, planks, poles, or anything of the kind, into a secure and flexible mat ; the sails used in the far East are made in this way, and the moveable decks of vessels