HISTORY OF THE [BOOK i. 



the men (excluding the women) had there meals in 

 common ; " observing that law," (saith the earl of 

 Cumberland, who visited these islands in 1596), 

 <c which in Lycurgus's mouth was thought strange 

 " and needless. "J These halls were also the the- 

 atres where their youth, were animated to emulation, 



j 



and trained to martial enterprize by the renown of 

 their warriors,, and the harangues of their orators. 



Their arts and manufactures, though few, dkplay- 

 ed a degree of ingenuity, which one would have 

 scarcely expected to find amongst a people so little 

 removed from a state of mere animal nature, as to 

 reject all dress as superfluous. Columbus observed 

 an abundance of substantial cotton cloth in all the 

 islands which he visited; and the natives possessed the 

 art of staining it with various colours, though the 

 Charaibes delighted chiefly in red. Of this cloth 

 they made hammocks, or hanging beds, such as are 

 now used at sea; for Europe has not only copied 

 the pattern, but preserved also the original name. || 



They possessed likewise the art of making vessels 

 of clay for domestic uses, which they baked in kilns 

 like the potters of Europe. The ruins of many of 

 these kilns were visible not long since in Barbadoes, 

 where specimens of the manufacture are still fre- 



J Purchas, vol. Jr. p. 1159. 



^ Labat, torn ii. p. 40. 



\ All the early Spanish and French writers expressly assert, that the 

 original Indian name for their swinging beds was amack, or hamack\~ 

 "but Dr. Johnson derives the English word bamtnock from the Saxon. 



