444 cook's voyage to july, 



these colours are laid on, I cannot say, as I never saw 

 any of this sort made. The cloth in general will 

 resist water for some time ; but that which has the 

 strongest glaze will resist longest. 



The manufacture next in consequence, and also 

 within the department of the* women, is that of their 

 mats, which excel every thing I have seen at any 

 other place, both as to their texture and their beauty. 

 In particular, many of them are so superior to those 

 made at Otaheite, that they are not a bad article to 

 carry thither by way of trade. Of these mats, they 

 have seven or eight different sorts, for the purposes 

 of wearing or sleeping upon, and many are merely 

 ornamental. The last are chiefly made from the 

 tough membraneous part of the stock of the plantain 

 tree ; those that they wear from the pandanus, cul- 

 tivated for that purpose, and never suffered to shoot 

 into a trunk ; and the coarser sort, which they sleep 

 upon, from a plant called evarra. There are many 

 other articles of less note, that employ the spare time 

 of their females ; as combs of which they make vast 

 numbers ; and little baskets made of the same sub- 

 stance as the mats, and others of the fibrous cocoa-nut 

 husk, either plain or interwoven with small beads ; 

 but all finished with such neatness and taste in the 

 disposition of the various parts, that a stranger 

 cannot help admiring their assiduity and dexterity. 



The province allotted to the men is, as might be 

 expected, far more laborious and extensive than 

 that of the women. Agriculture, architecture, boat- 

 building, fishing, and other things that relate to na- 

 vigation, are the objects of their care. # Cultivated 



* How remarkably does Captain Cook's account of the employ- 

 ments of the women and men here, agree with Father Cantova's, 

 of the Caroline Islanders ! "La principale occupation des 

 hommes, est de construire des barques, de pecher, et de cultiver 

 la terre. L'affaire des femmes est de faire la cuisine, et de mettre 

 en ceuvre un espece de plante sauvage, et un arbre, pour en faire 

 de la toile." 



Letlres Edifiantes et Curieuses, torn. xv. p 313, 



