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ftill whiter and softer by being washed and beaten again after it has been worn.

Of this cloth there are feveral forts, of different degrees of fineness, in proportion as it is more or less beaten without being doubled: the other cloth also differs in proportion as it is beaten; but they differ from each other in confequence of the different materials of which they are made. The bark of the bread-fruit is not taken till the trees are confiderably longer and thicker than thofe of the fig; the process afterwards is the fame.

When cloth is to be washed after it has been worn, it is taken down to the brook, and left to foak, being kept fast to the bottom, as at first, by a ftone; it is then gently wrung or squeezed; and sometimes feveral pieces of it are laid one upon another, and beaten together with the coarseft fide of the mallet, and they are then equal in thickness to broad-cloth, and much more soft and agreeable to the touch, after they have been a little while in ufe, though when they come immediately from the mallet, they feel as if they had been ftarched. This cloth fometimes breaks in the beating, but is eafily repaired by pasting on a patch with a gluten that is prepared from the root of the Pea, which is done fo nicely that it cannot be difco-. vered. The women alfo employ themselves in removing

removing blemishes of every kind, as our ladies do in needle-work or knotting; fometimes when their work is intended to be very fine, they will paste an entire covering of hoboo over the whole. The principal excellencies of this cloth are its coolness and softness; and its imperfections, its being pervious to water like paper, and almost as easily torn.

The colours with which they dye this cloth are principally red and yellow. The red is exceedingly beautiful, and I may venture to say a brighter and more delicate colour than any we have in Europe; that which approaches nearest is our full scarlet, and the best imitation which Mr. Banks's natural history painter could produce, was by a mixture of vermilion and carmine. The yellow is alfo a bright colour, but we have many as good.

The red colour is produced by the mixture of the juices of two vegetables, neither of which feparately has the leaft tendency to that hue. One is a species of fig called here Matte, and the other the Cordia Sebeftina, or Etou; of the fig the fruit is used, and of the Cordia the leaves.

The fruit of the fig is about as big as a rounceval pea, or very small gooseberry; and each of them, upon breaking off the stalk very close, produces one drop of a milky liquor, refembling the juice of our figs, of which the tree is

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indeed a fpecies. This liquor the women collect into a finall quantity of cocoa-nut water : to prepare a gill of cocoa-nut water will require between three and four quarts of these little figs. When a fufficient quantity is prepared, the leaves of the Etou are well wetted in it, and then laid upon a plantain leaf, where they are turned about till they become more and more faccid, and then they are gently fqueezed, gradually increasing the preffure, but fo as not to break them; as the flaccidity increafes, and they become fpungy, they are fupplied with more of the liquor; in about five minutes the colour begins to appear upon the veins of the leaves, and in about ten or a little more, they are perfectly faturated with it; they are then fqueezed, with as much force as can be applied, and the liquor ftrained at the fame time that it is expreffed.

For this purpofe, the boys prepare a large quantity of the Moo, by drawing it between their teeth, or two little fticks, till it is freed from the green bark and the branny fubftance that lies under it, and a thin web of the fibres only remains; in this the leaves of the Etou are inveloped, and through these the juice which they contain is ftrained as it is forced out. As the leaves are not fucculent, little more juice is preffed out of them than they have imbibed: when they have been once emptied,

they are filled again, and again preffed, till the quality which tinctures the liquor as it paffes through them is exhausted, they are then thrown away; but the Moo, being deeply stained with the colour, is preferved, as a brush to lay the dye upon the cloth.

The expreffed liquor is always received into fmall cups made of the plantain leaf, whether from a notion that it has any quality favourable to the colour, or from the facility with which it is procured, and the convenience of small veffels to distribute it among the artificers, I do not know.

Of the thin cloth they feldom dye more than the edges, but the thick cloth is coloured through the whole furface; the liquor is indeed used rather as a pigment than a dye, for a coat of it is laid upon one fide only, with the fibres of the Moo; and though I have feen of the thin cloth that has appeared to have been soaked in the liquor, the colour has not had the fame richnefs and luftre, as when it has been applied in the other manner.

Though the leaf of the Etou is generally used in this procefs, and probably produces the finest colour; yet the juice of the figs will produce a red by a mixture with the fpecies of Tournefor tia, which they call Tabeinoo, the Pobuc, the Eurbe, or Convolvulus Brafilienfis, and a fpecies of Solanum called Ebooa; from the use of these

different

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different plants, or from different proportions of the materials, many varieties are obfervable in the colours of their cloth, fome of which are confpicuously superior to others.

The beauty, however, of the best is not permanent; but it is probable that fome method might be found to fix it, if proper experiments were made, and perhaps to fearch for latent qualities, which may be brought out by the mixture of one vegetable juice with another, would not be an unprofitable employment: our prefent most valuable dyes afford sufficient encouragement to the attempt; for by the mere infpection of indico, woad, dyer's weed, and moft of the leaves which are used for the like purposes, the colours which they yield could never be discovered. Of this Indian red I fhall only add, that the women who have been employed in preparing or ufing it, carefully preferve the colour upon their fingers and nails, where it appears in its utmost beauty, as a great

ornament.

The yellow is made of the bark of the root of the Morinda citrifolia, called Nono, by fcraping and infufing it in water; after standing some time, the water is ftrained and used as a dye, the cloth being dipped into it. The Morinda, of which this is a species, feems to be a good fubject for examination with a view to dyeing. Brown, in his hiftory of Jamaica, mentions three fpecies