WANT OF MECHANICS. 171 
ducing those commodities of civilized nations 
which they prize so highly, they are still as 
much as ever unacquainted. They possess 
sheep, and excellent cotton; but no spinning- 
wheel, no loom, has yet been set in motion 
among them; they choose rather to buy their 
cloth and cotton of foreigners for real gold and 
pearls; one of our sailors sold an old shirt 
for five piastres. Horses and cattle have been 
brought to them, but the few that remain have 
fallen into the possession of strangers, and have 
become so scarce, that one hundred piastres was 
asked for an ox, that we wanted in provisioning 
the ship. The Queen alone possesses a pair of 
horses, but she never uses them. The island 
contains but one smith, though the assistance 
of the forge and bellows would be so useful in 
repairing the iron tools which have superseded 
those of stone formerly in use. It.is extraor- 
dinary that even the foreigners established 
here carry on no kind of mechanical trade. 
Can it be that the Missionaries object to it? 
It is certain that they possess great influence 
even over the settlers. An American, however, 
was planning the introduction of a sugar ma- 
ae 
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