MANUFACTURES. 281 



shoulders by^ — in these various small articles are 

 carried^ among* them the spatula and calabash^ with 

 lime to be used in betel chewinof — and a netted baof, 

 a foot and a half in width and one in depth. Their 

 rope is beautifully made of the long* toug'h stringy 

 bark of a tree^ strong-ly twisted and laid up in three 

 strands^ and for finer lines and twine a kind of flax, 

 resembling' the New Zealand^ but still more the 

 Manila sort^ is used here. The finest sample of the 

 prepared material which I saw measm'ed eleven 

 feet in leng'th^ and consisted of a bundle of rather 

 fine white fibres. Althoug'h very much coarser 

 than our hemp^ it is of nearly uniform size^ and 

 possesses considerable strength^ but breaks easily 

 when knotted. We saw it in considerable quantity^ 

 but had no means of ascertaining* the plant from 

 which it is derived^ probably^ however^ a banana of 

 some kind. We occasionally saw pieces of a white 

 soft papery cloth^ apparently similar to the tapa of 

 Polynesia^ and like it made of the inner bark of some 

 small tree^ but it did not appear to be applied to 

 much use. 



In the Louisiade we had not observed the betel 

 pepper^ but here it was found in common use — both 

 the leaf and g'reen fruit_, especially the latter^ being* 

 added to the lime and areca-nut. Still betel chew- 

 ing*^ although a very g-eneral habit^ is by no means 

 universally practised^ for many elderly people re- 

 tained the original whiteness of the teeth. By the 

 males it appears to be adopted only after attaining* 



