146 GENERAL ACCOUNT OF SOUTH SEA ISLANDS CH. vn 



third, which is by far the rarest, is made a coarse, harsh 

 cloth of the colour of the deepest brown paper: it is the 

 only one they have that at all resists water, and is much 

 valued ; most of it is perfumed and used by the very great 

 people as a morning dress. These three trees are cultivated 

 with much care, especially the former, which covers the 

 largest part of their cultivated land. Young plants 

 of one or two years' growth only are used; their great 

 merit is that they are thin, straight, tall, and without 

 branches ; to prevent the growth of these last they pluck 

 off with great care all the lower leaves and their germs, as 

 often as there is any appearance of a tendency to produce 

 branches. 



Their method of manufacturing the bark is the same for 

 all the sorts : one description of it will therefore be sufficient. 

 The thin cloth they make thus : when the trees have grown 

 to a sufficient size they are drawn up, and the roots and 

 tops cut off and stripped of their leaves ; the best of the 

 aouta are in this state about three or four feet long and as 

 thick as a man's finger, but the ooroo are considerably 

 larger. The bark of these rods is then slit up longitudinally, 

 and in this manner drawn off the stick ; when all are 

 stripped, the bark is carried to some brook or running water, 

 into which it is laid to soak with stones upon it, and in this 

 situation it remains some days. When sufficiently soaked 

 the women servants go down to the river, and stripping 

 themselves, sit down in the water and scrape the pieces of 

 bark, holding them against a flat smooth board, with the 

 shell called by the English shell merchants Tiger's tongue 

 (Tellina gargadia), dipping it continually in the water until 

 all the outer green bark is rubbed and washed away, and 

 nothing remains but the very fine fibres of the inner bark. 

 This work is generally finished in the afternoon : in the 

 evening the pieces are spread out upon plantain leaves, and in 

 doing this I suppose there is some difficulty, as the mistress 

 of the family generally presides over the operation. All 

 that I could observe was that they laid them in two or 

 three layers, and seemed very careful to make them every- 



