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CHA P. V.

Of the Manufacturers, Boats, and Navigation of
Otabeite.

F neceffity is the mother of invention, it cannot be

berality of Nature has rendered the diligence of Art almost fuperfluous; yet there are many inftances both of ingenuity and labour among these people, which, confidering the want of metal for tools, do honour to both.

1769.

Their principal manufacture is their cloth, in the Manufacmaking and dying of which, I think, there are fome lures. particulars which may inftruct even the artificers of Great Britain, and for that reafon my defcription 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 refembles the wild fig-tree of the Weft Indies.

The finest and whiteft 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 fort, inferior in whitenefs and softness, is made of the bread-fruit tree, Ooroo, and worn chiefly by the inferior people; and a third of the tree that refembles the fig, which is coarfe and harsh, and of the colour of the darkest brown paper: this, though it is lefs pleasing both to the eye and the touch, is the most valuable, because it refifts water, which the other two forts 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 ufe after two or three years growth, when it is about fix or eight feet high, and fomewhat thicker than a man's thumb; its excellence is to be thin, ftraight, tall, and without branches; the lower leaves, therefore are carefully

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1769. plucked off, with their germs, as often as there is any appearance of their producing a branch.

But though the cloth made of thefe three trees is different, it is all manufactured in the fame manner; I fhall therefore defcribe the procefs only in the fine fort, that is made of the mulberry. When the trees are of a proper fize, they are drawn up, and stripped of their branches, after which the roots and tops are cut off; the bark of thefe rods being then flit up longitudinally, is eafily drawn off, and, when a proper quantity has been procured, it is carried down to fome running water, in which it is depofited to foak, and fecured from floating away by heavy ftones; when it is fuppofed to be fufficiently foftened, the women fervants go down to the brook, and stripping themselves fit down in the water, to feparate the inner bark from the green part on the outfide: to do this, they place the under fide upon a flat fmooth board, and with the fhell which our dealers call Tyger's Tongue, Tellina gargadia, fcrape 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 fome difficulty, as the mistress of the family always fuperintends the doing of it; they are placed in lengths of about eleven or twelve yards, one by the fide 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 fhall be in all parts of an equal thickness, fo that if the bark happens to be thinner in any one particular part of one layer than the reft, a piece that is fomewhat thicker is picked out to be laid over it in the next. In this ftate it remains till the morning, when great part of the water, which it contained when it was laid out, is either drained off or evaporated, and the several fibres adhere together, fo as that the whole may be raised from the ground in one piece.

It is then taken away, and laid upon the fmooth fide of a long piece of wood, prepared for the purpofe, and beaten by the women fervants, with inftru

ments

ments about a foot long and three inches thick, made of a hard wood which they call Etoa. The fhape of this inftrument is not unlike a fquare razor ftrap, only that the handle is longer, and each of its four fides or faces is marked, lengthways, with fmall grooves, or furrows, of different degrees of fineness; thofe on one fide being of a width and depth sufficient to receive a fmall packthread, and the others finer, in a regular gradation, fo that the last are not more than equal to fewing filk.

They beat it firft with the coarfeft fide of this mallet, keeping time like our fmiths; it fpreads 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 fucceffively beaten with the other fides, laft with the fineft, and is then fit for ufe, Sometimes, however, it is made still thinner, by beating it with the finest fide of the mallet, after it has been feveral times doubled; it is then called Hoboo, and is almoft as thin as a muflin; it becomes very white by being bleached in the air, but is made ftill whiter and softer by being washed, and beaten again after it has been worn.

Of this cloth there are several 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 breadfruit is not taken till the trees are confiderably longer and thicker than those 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 stone; it is then gently wrung, or fqueezed, and fometimes several 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 foft 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 fome imes breaks in the

beating,

1769.

beating, but it 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 discovered. The women alfo employ themselves in removing blemishes of every kind, as our ladies do in needlework 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 fcarlet, and the beft 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 feparately has the leaft tendency to that hue. One is a fpecies of fig, called here Matte, and the other the Cordia Sebeftina, or Etou; of the fig the fruit is ufed, and of the Cordia the leaves.

The fruit of the fig is about as big as a rounceval pea, or very small goofeberry; and each of them, upon breaking off the stalk very clofe, produces one drop of a milky liquor, refembling the juice of our figs, of which the tree is indeed a fpecies. This liquor the women collect into a small quantity of cocoanut 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 flaccid, and then they are gently fqueezed, gradually increasing the preffure, but fo as not to break them; as the flaccidity increases, and they become fpongy, 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,

ten, or a little more, they are perfectly faturated with it; they are then squeezed with as much force as can be applied, and the liquor ftrained at the fame time that it is expreffed.

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 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 liquor 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 fmall veffels to diftribute 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 foaked in the liquor, the colour has not had the fame richness and luftre 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 fpecies of Tournefortia, which they call Taheinoo, the Pohuc, the Eurhe, or Convolvulus Brafilienfis, and a fpecies of Solanum, called Ebooa; from the ufe of thefe different plants, or from different proportions of the materials, many varieties are obfervable in

the

1769.

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