44 CAPTAIN COOK'S VOYAGES 



in the observance of this unusual custom, that even brothers 

 and sisters have their separate baskets to contain their pro- 

 visions, and generally sit some yards apart when they eat, 

 with their backs turned towards each other, not exchanging 

 a single word during the whole time of their repast. The 

 middle-aged of superior rank usually betake themselves to 

 sleep after dinner, but what is remarkable, the older people 

 are not so lazy, music, dancing, wrestling, and shooting with 

 the bow, or throwing a lance, constitute the chief part of 

 their diversions. 



Flutes, which have been mentioned before, and drums, 

 are the only musical instruments among them ; their drums 

 are formed of a circular piece of wood, hollow at one end 

 only, which is covered with the skin of a shark, and they are 

 beaten with the hand instead of a stick. Their songs are 

 extempore, and frequently in rhyme, but consist of only two 

 lines. 



Among their other amusements they have a dance, which 

 is performed by ten or a dozen young females, who put 

 themselves into the most unbecoming attitudes that can 

 possibly be imagined, keeping time, during the performance, 

 with the greatest nicety and exactness. 



Their personal cleanliness is an object that merits peculiar 

 attention. Independently of their washing their mouths 

 and hands before and after meals, as already stated, both 

 sexes never omit to wash with water three times a day 

 when they rise, at noon, and before they go to rest. They 

 also keep their clothes extremely clean ; so that in the 

 largest communities no disagreeable effluvia ever arises, nor 

 is there any other inconvenience than heat. 



The chief manufacture of Otaheite is cloth ; of this cloth 

 there are three different sorts, which are made of the bark of 

 as many different trees, viz., the mulberry, the bread-fruit, 

 and a tree not unlike the wild fig-tree, which is found in 

 some parts of the West Indies. The mulberry-tree, which 

 the Indians call Aouta, produces the finest cloth, which is 

 seldom worn but by those of the first rank. The next sort, 

 which is worn by the lower class of people, is made of the 

 bread-fruit tree, and the coarsest of the three resembling the 

 fig-tree. This last sort, though more useful than the two 

 former, on account of its keeping out water, which neither 

 of the others will, is exceedingly scarce, being manufactured 

 but in small quantities. 



The cloth becomes quite white by bleaching, and is dyed 

 of a red, yellow, brown, or black colour ; the first of which 

 is very beautiful, and equal, if not superior, to any in 

 Europe. 



Matting of various kinds is another considerable manu- 



