CHAP, in.] WEST INDIES. 87 



by culture, nor have the knowledge of converting 

 its wool into cloth ;|| but content themselves with a 

 far meaner production as a substitute. Our islanders 

 had not only the skill of making excellent cloth from 

 their cotton, but they practised also the art of dying 

 it with a variety of colours > some of them of the ut- 

 most brilliancy and beauty.* 



In the science of ship-building (if the construction 

 of such vessels as either people used may be distin- 

 guished with that appellation) the superiority is on the 

 side of Otaheite; yet the Piraguas of the West In- 

 dians were fully sufficient for the navigation they were 

 employed in, and indeed were by no means contempt- 

 ible sea-boats. We are told that some of these vessels 

 were navigated with forty oars ;| and Herrera relates, 

 that Bartholomew Columbus, in passing through the 

 gulph of Honduras, fell in with one that was eight 

 feet in breadth, and in length equal to a Spanish gal- 

 ley. Over the middle was an awning, composed of 

 mats and palm-tree leaves; underneath which were 

 disposed the women and children, secured both from 

 rain and the spray of the sea. It was laden with com- 

 modities from Jucatan.J 



|| Forster's Observations. 



* Oviedo. Purchas, vol. iii. p. 985. 



f Martyr, decad. i. 



J Herrera, decad. i. lib. v. These vessels were built either of cedar, 

 or the great cotton-tree hollowed, and made square at each end like punts. 

 Their gunnels were raised with canes braced close, and smeared over with 

 some bituminous substance to render them water-tight, and they had sharp 

 keels. P. Martyr, decad. 



