y 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 vessels 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, for a 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 observable in the colours of their cloth, some of
which are conspicuously superior to others.

The beauty, however, of the best, is not permanent; but it is probable
that some method might be found to fix it, if proper experiments were
made, and perhaps to search for latent qualities, which may be brought
out by the mixture of one vegetable juice with another, would not be an
unprofitable employment: Our present most valuable dyes afford
sufficient encouragement to the attempt; for, by the mere inspection of
indigo, woad, dyer's weed, and most of the leaves which are used for the
like purposes, the colours which they yield could never be discovered.
Of this Indian red I shall only add, that the women who have been
employed in preparing or using it, car