BARK-CLOTH MANUFACTURE. 15 



and various other islands, and has never been intro- 

 duced into our gardens, where it would be a great orna- 

 ment, nor did any of my specimens survive being taken 

 out of their native soil. 



Mr. Fletcher showed us over the town, famous as the 

 first spot in Fiji where Christianity was triumphant and 

 a printing-press established. The church, constructed 

 in native fashion, is a fine substantial building, capable 

 of holding about two hundred and fifty people. On the 

 open place before it was spread out one of the largest 

 pieces of native bark-cloth I have ever seen, being about 

 one hundred feet long and twenty feet wide. This was 

 the only cloth worn before the recent introduction of 

 cotton fabrics. Considering that it was manufactured 

 without the aid of any machinery, simply by peeling the 

 bark of the paper-mulberry, when the tree is scarcely 

 thicker than a little finger, and then soaking and beat- 

 ing the different pieces in such a way that they expand 

 and all join together in one large mass, the piece was 

 well deserving to be examined. But perhaps the most 

 curious fact is that not only did the Fijians, as indeed 

 most Polynesians, know how to make such cloth, but 

 they also printed it in many different colours and pat- 

 terns, probably exercising the art of printing ages be- 

 fore Guttenberg, Coster, or whoever else may lay claim 

 to its invention in Europe, were dreamt of. Was it of 

 endemic growth, or did the Fijians derive it in some 

 way from China, where it seems to have been practised 

 from time immemorial I 



Not far from the church was the tomb of a departed 

 chief, a series of slabs placed perpendicularly and forming 



