last side were fine
as the finest silk. The fabric was beaten with the coarser side first,
the women keeping time, and it spread rapidly under their strokes. The
finest side was the last used, and the groove marked the cloth so as to
give it the appearance of having been made of fine thread. It was then
almost as thin as English muslin, and became very white on being
bleached in the air. The scarlet dye used was very brilliant, and was
extracted from the juice of a species of fig; a duller red was from the
leaves of another tree. A yellow pigment was extracted from the root of
the _Morinda citrifolia_. A brown and a black dye were also used.

The natives, when visited by Cook, manufactured mats of various
descriptions, some of them exceedingly fine and beautiful. One sort
served them for clothing in wet weather. They made also coarse mats of
rushes and grass, to sit or sleep on, plaiting them with great rapidity
and facility. They produced every variety of basket-work of great
beauty; they also made ropes and string of all sorts; their
fishing-line, made from the bark of a species of nettle, was far
stronger than any English line of the same thickness. Their
fishing-nets, though coarse, answered their purpose. They were often
eighty fathoms in length. Harpoons, made of cane, were used to catch
fish, and fish-hooks of mother-of-pearl. One used for trawling had a
white tuft of dog's or hog's hair attached to it, to look like the tail
of a fish. The fishermen watched for the birds which always follow a
shoal of bonetas, and seldom returned without a prize. Both sexes were
expert swimmers, and would dash out through the fiercest foam, diving
under the breaking seas as they rolled in, and coming up on the other
side. One of their amusements was to tow out a small raft on which they
would sit, and allow themselves to be carried in on the top of a high
foaming sea, amid which no boat could live for an instant. They were
not without the comfort of artificial light. Their candles were made of
the kernels of a kind of oily nut, which were stuck one over another on
a skewer running through the middle. The upper one being lighted burnt
down to the second, which took fire, the part of the skewer which went
through the first being consumed, and so on to the last. These candles
burnt a considerable time, and gave a very tolerable light.

From the brief description which has been given of their manufactures it
will