37 
which are sold at a trifling price to the public, and numbers of 
foreign trees and vegetables have been successfully introduced. 
The result is that hundreds of thousands of trees and plants 
of all descriptions have been dispersed throughout the island, 
at a very moderate cost to the Government. Dr. Gardner is 
likewise engaged in the preparation of a Flora Ceylanica, a work 
which will contain descriptions of all the plants indigenous to the 
island, so far as he can obtain them, and thus make known to 
the scientiflc world, the history and uses of tlie vegetable pro¬ 
ductions of a region, with which the botanists of Europe are less 
acquainted than any other portion of India of equal extent. 
On the Native Cloth and on the Kava of the South Sea 
Islanders. 
(In a letter from Capt. Sik EVEKAKD HOME, Bart.. R.N.) 
The Plantations in the Island of Tongataboo, the largest of 
the Friendly group, consist principally of Yams, Taro, and the 
Paper Mulberry. From the bark of the latter, taken when the 
stem is about two inches in diameter, the cloth is prepared with 
which both sexes of the inhabitants are clothed; and it is thus 
made. After being soaked in water it is laid upon a log of wood, 
which is about as large as the axle-tree of a large cart, small 
at each end, both extremities supported on the ground by three 
small pieces of wood, two being laid parallel to each other and 
to the main log, the third is laid across; the ends of the log 
thus rest upon the cross pieces, which raise it three or four 
inches from the ground, according to the thickness of the 
pieces of wood which support it. The bark, when placed upon 
the log, is beaten out by the women with an instrument made 
of heavy wood, something like a rolling-pin, except that it is 
square from the handle, which is round. The beating commences 
at daylight in the morning and continues, without ceasing, 
until three in the afternoon, unless the women are working 
against time, some great event, such as a marriage, causing 
increased exertion, when they go on until dark. The noise caused 
by the beaters is loud and musical; they keep time in the opera¬ 
tion ; two or four beaters are usually at work in every house, 
or under a shed formed for the purpose in the enclosed court¬ 
yard which smrounds each dwelling, so that the women of 
Tonga make more noise than those of any place I ever visited. 
