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country. My friends, indeed, advised me to 

 remain in bed, but I would not acknowledge 

 how ill I was; and persisted in accompanying 

 them. Of course my head grew very painful, 

 and my cold oppressed and stupified me so 

 much, as to prevent my remembering distinctly 

 the half of what I saw. 



I recollect, however, being shewn how the wool 

 was washed and beaten in order to clean it. When 

 well dried and picked, it was carded on large 

 cylindrical brushes, made of wire instead of hair, 

 which laid all the fibres in one direction; the 

 wool was then oiled, and again combed or 

 brushed with finer cards on the knee, and at last 

 spun into yarn that intended for the warp 

 being always smaller and more twisted than that 

 of the woof. The yarn for the woof was then 

 wound on little bobbins or tubes ; and in weaving, 

 one of these is placed in the middle of the shuttle, 

 on a pin, round which it easily turns, so as to let 

 the thread run off through a hole called the eye 

 of the shuttle, as it travels from side to side of 

 the loom. 



I will not tease you with the manner of warp- 

 ing the yarn from one beam to the other; nor 

 with a description of the heddles, or looped 

 strings, which raise and depress the alternate 

 threads of the warp for the shuttle to pass be- 

 tween them, and which the weaver works by his 

 feet ; nor of the batten and reed for driving the 



