

1769 CLOTH MANUFACTURE 145 



seen in Europe, though their time is certainly much more 

 simple. This exercise is, however, left off as they arrive at 

 years of maturity. 



The great facility with which these people have always pro- 

 cured the necessaries of life may very reasonably be thought 

 to have originally sunk them into a kind of indolence, which 

 has, as it were, benumbed their inventions, and prevented 

 their producing such a variety of arts as might reasonably 

 be expected from the approaches they have made in their 

 manners to the politeness of the Europeans. To this may 

 also be added a fault which is too frequent even among the 

 most civilised nations, I mean an invincible attachment to 

 the customs which they have learnt from their forefathers. 

 These people are in so far excusable, as they derive their 

 origin, not from creation, but from an inferior divinity, who 

 was herself, with others of equal rank, descended from the 

 god, causer of earthquakes. They therefore look upon it as 

 a kind of sacrilege to attempt to mend customs which they 

 suppose had their origin either among their deities or their 

 ancestors, whom they hold as little inferior to the divinities 

 themselves. 



They show their greatest ingenuity in marking and dyeing 

 cloth ; in the description of these operations, especially the 

 latter, I shall be rather diffuse, as I am not without hopes 

 that my countrymen may receive some advantage, either 

 from the articles themselves, or at least by hints derived 

 from them. 



The material of which it is made is the internal bark or 

 liber of three sorts of trees, the Chinese paper mulberry 

 (Morus papyri/era), the bread-fruit tree (Sitodium utile 1 ), and 

 a tree much resembling the wild fig-tree of the West Indies 

 (Ficus prolixa}. Of the first, which they name aouta, they 

 make the finest and whitest cloth, which is worn chiefly by 

 the principal people ; it is likewise the most suitable for 

 dyeing, especially with red. Of the second, which they call 

 ooroo, is made a cloth inferior to the former in whiteness and 

 softness, worn chiefly by people of inferior degree. Of the 



1 Artocarpus incisa, Linn. f. 

 L 



