1777* THE pacific OCEAN. 351 



I took a walk into the country ; in the course of 

 which nothing remarkable appeared, but our having 

 opportunities of seeing the whole process of making 

 cloth, which is the principal manufacture of these 

 islands as well as of many others in this ocean. In 

 the narrative of my first voyage *, a minute descrip- 

 tion is given of this operation as performed atOtaheite ; 

 but the process here differing in some particulars, it 

 may be worth while to give the following account 

 of it. 



The manufacturers, who are females, take the 

 slender stalks or trunks of the paper-mulberry, which 

 they cultivate for that purpose, and which seldom 

 grows more than six or seven feet in height, and 

 about four fingers in thickness. From these they 

 strip the bark, and scrape off the outer rind with a 

 muscle-shell. The bark is then rolled up to take off 

 the convexity which it had round the stalk, and 

 macerated in water for some time (they say a night.) 

 After this it is laid across the trunk of a small tree 

 squared, and beaten with a square wooden instru- 

 ment about a foot long, full of coarse grooves on all 

 sides ; but sometimes with one that is plain. Ac- 

 cording to the size of the bark, a piece is soon pro- 

 duced ; but the operation is often repeated by another 

 hand, or it is folded several times and beat longer, 

 which seems rather intended to close than to divide 

 its texture. When this is sufficiently effected, it is 

 spread out to dry ; the pieces being from four to six 

 or more feet in length, and half as broad. They are 

 then given to another person who joins the pieces, 

 by smearing part of them over with the viscous juice 

 of a berry called tooo, which serves as a glue. Hav- 

 ing been thus lengthened, they are laid over a large 

 piece of wood, with a kind of stamp made of a fibrous 

 substance pretty closely interwoven, placed beneath. 

 They then take a bit of cloth and dip it in a juice 



* See Vol. I. p. 209. 



