SECTION XVIII.

Of the Manufactures, Boats, and Navigations of Otaheite.

If necessity is the mother of invention, it cannot be supposed to have been much exerted where the liberality of Nature has rendered the diligence of Art almost superfluous; yet there are many instances both of ingenuity and labour among these people, which, considering the want of metal for tools, do honour to both.

Their principal manufacture is their cloth, in the making and dyeing of which I think there are some particulars which may instruct even the artificers of Great Britain, and for that reason my description will be more minute.

Their cloth is of three kinds; and it is made of the bark of three different trees, the Chinese paper mulberry, the bread-fruit tree, and the tree which resembles the wild figtree of the West Indies.

The finest and whitest is made of the paper mulberry, Aouta; this is worn chiefly by the principal people, and when it is dyed red takes a better colour. A second sort, inferior in whiteness and softness, is made of the bread-fruit tree, Ooroo, and worn chiefly by the inferior people; and a third of the tree that resembles the fig, which is coarse and harsh, and of the colour of the darkest brown paper: This, though it is less pleasing both to the eye and to the touch, is the most valuable, because it resists water, which the other two sorts will not. Of this, which is the most rare as well as the most useful, the greater part is perfumed, and worn by the chiefs as a morning dress.

All these trees are propagated with great care, particularly the mulberry, which covers the largest part of the cultivated land, and is not fit for use after two or three years growth, when it is about six or eight feet high, and somewhat thicker than a man's thumb; its excellence is to bẻ thin, straight, tall, and without branches: The lower leaves,

British ladies, who, unless banished to a watering place, no more think of being generally washed, than of being curried with a currying-comb, or undergoing the operation of tattowing? The powers of nature are marvellous indeed, which can support their lives for years, under all the filth and exuviæ, accumulated with such idolatrous fondness.-E.

leaves, therefore, are carefully plucked off, with their germs, as often as there is any appearance of their producing a branch.

But though the cloth made of these three trees is different, it is all manufactured in the same manner; I shall, therefore, describe the process only in the fine sort, that is made of the mulberry. When the trees are of a proper size, they are drawn up, and stripped of their branches, after which the roots and tops are cut off; the bark of these rods being then slit up longitudinally is easily drawn off, and, when a proper quantity has been procured, it is carried down to some running water, in which it is deposited to soak, and secured from floating away by heavy stones: When it is supposed to be sufficiently softened, the women servants go down to the brook, and stripping themselves, sit down in the water, to separate the inner bark from the green bark on the outside; to do this they place the under side upon a flat smooth board, and with the shell which our dealers call Tyger's tongue, Tellina gargadia, scrape it very carefully, dipping it continually in the water till nothing remains but the fine fibres of the inner coat. Being thus prepared in the afternoon, they are spread out upon plantain leaves in the evening; and in this part of the work there appears to be some difficulty, as the mistress of the family always superintends the doing of it: They are placed in lengths of about eleven or twelve yards, one by the side of another, till they are about a foot broad, and two or three layers are also laid one upon the other: Care is taken that the cloth shall be in all parts of an equal thickness, so that if the bark happens to be thinner in any particular part of one layer than the rest, a piece that is somewhat thicker is picked out to be laid over it in the next. In this state it remains till the morning, when great part of the water which it contained when it was laid out,

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The reader will find additional information on this subject, and on several others here treated, in some of the subsequent accounts; from which, however, it seemed unadvisable to make quotations at present. is scarcely necessary to add, that the curious art of dyeing, which the Otaheitans seem to practise with no small ingenuity, has been much investigated on philosophical principles since the date of this publication. Modern chemistry has a right to boast of her acquisitions in so very important a point of domestic science; but it would be invidious and improper to specify them in this place.-E.

is either drained off or evaporated, and the several fibres adhere together, so as that the whole may be raised from the ground in one piece.

It is then taken away, and laid upon the smooth side of a long piece of wood, prepared for the purpose, and beaten by the women servants, with instruments about a foot long and three inches, thick, made of a hard wood which they call Etoa. The shape of this instrument is not unlike a square razor strop, only that the handle is longer, and each of its four sides or faces is marked, lengthways, with small' grooves, or furrows, of different degrees of fineness; those on one side being of a width and depth sufficient to receive a small packthread, and the others finer in a regular gradation, so that the last are not more than equal to sewing silk.

They beat it first with the coarsest side of this mallet, keeping time like our smiths; it spreads very fast under the strokes, chiefly however in the breadth, and the grooves in the mallet mark it with the appearance of threads; it is successively beaten with the other sides, last with the finest, and is then fit for use. Sometimes, however, it is made still thinner, by beating it with the finest side of the mallet, after it has been several times doubled: It is then called Hoboo, and is almost as thin as a muslin; It becomes very white by being bleached in the air, but is made still whiter and softer by being washed and beaten again after it has been worn.

Of this cloth there are several sorts, 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 consequence of the different materials of which they are made. The bark of the bread-fruit is not taken till the trees are considerably longer and thicker than those of the fig; the process afterwards is the same.

When cloth is to be washed after it has been worn, it is taken down to the brook, and left to soak, being kept fast to the bottom, as at first, by a stone; it is then gently wrung or squeezed; and sometimes several pieces of it are laid one upon another, and beaten together with the coarsest side 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 use, though when they come immediately from the mallet, they feel as

if they had been starched. This cloth sometimes breaks in the beating, but is easily repaired by pasting on a patch with a gluten that is prepared from the root of the Pea, which is done so nicely that it cannot be discovered. The women also employ themselves in removing blemishes of every kind, as our ladies do in needle-work or knotting; sometimes 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.'

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The colours with which they dye this cloth are principally red and yellow. The red is exceedingly beautiful, and 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 also 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 separately has the least tendency to that hue. One is a species of fig called here Matte, and the other the Cordia Sebestina, 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, resembling the juice of our figs, of which the tree is indeed a species. This liquor the women collect into a small 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 sufficient 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

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2 The missionary account tells us, that the noble women are the principal cloth-makers. Among these people, it seems, that it is far from being thought disgraceful, for the higher orders to engage in domestic concerns and useful manufactures, nor is it the least disparagement for a chief to be found in the midst of his workmen labouring with his own hands; but it would be reckoned a great disgrace not to shew superior skill." Like the patriarchs of old, and the heroes of Homer, these chiefs assist in the preparation of victuals for the entertainment of their guests. -E.

more and more flaccid, and then they are gently squeezed, gradually increasing the pressure, but so as not to break them; as the flaccidity increases, and they become spungy, they are supplied 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 saturated with it: They are then squeezed, with as much force as can be applied, and the liquor strained at the same time that it is expressed.

For this purpose, the boys prepare a large quantity of the Moo, by drawing it between their teeth, or two little sticks, till it is freed from the green bark and the branny substance that lies under it, and a thin web of the fibres only remains; in this the leaves of the Etou are enveloped, and through these the juice which they contain is strained as it is forced out. As the leaves are not succulent, little more juice is pressed out of them than they have imbibed: When they have been once emptied, they are filled again, and again pressed, till the quality which tinctures the liquor as it passes through them is exhausted; they are then thrown away; but the moo, being deeply stained with the colour, is preserved, as a brush to lay the dye upon the cloth.

The expressed liquor is always received into small 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 ves sels to distribute it among the artificers, I do not know.

Of the thin cloth they seldom dye more than the edges, but the thick cloth is coloured through the whole surface; the liquor is indeed used rather as a pigment than a dye, fora coat of it is laid upon one side only, with the fibres of the moo; and though I have seen of the thin cloth that has appeared to have been soaked in the liquor, the colour has not had the same richness and lustre, as when it has been applied in the other manner.

Though the leaf of the etou is generally used in this process, and probably produces the finest colour, yet the juice of the figs will produce a red by a mixture with the species of tournefortia, which they call taheinno, the pohuc, the eurhe, or convolvulus brasiliensis, and a species of solanum called ebooa; from the use of these different plants, or from different proportions of the materials, many varieties are ob

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