1769 MATTING, ETC. 153 



the water, and dip the cloth into it. The wood of the root 

 is no doubt furnished in some degree with the same property 

 as the bark, but not having any vessels in which they can 

 boil it, it is useless to the inhabitants. The genus of 

 Morinda seems worthy of being examined as to its properties 

 for dyeing. Browne, in his History of Jamaica, mentions 

 three species whose roots, he says, are used to dye a brown 

 colour; and Eumphius says of his Bancudus angustifolia^ 

 which is very nearly allied to our nono, that it is used by 

 the inhabitants of the East Indian Islands as a fixing drug 

 for the colour of red, with which he says it particularly 

 agrees. 



They also dye yellow with the fruit of a tree called 

 tamanu (Calophyllum inophyllum), but their method I never 

 had the fortune to see. It seems, however, to be chiefly 

 esteemed by them for the smell, more agreeable to an Indian 

 than an European nose, which it gives to the cloth. 



Besides their cloth, the women make several kinds of 

 matting, which serves them to sleep upon, the finest being 

 also used for clothes. With this last they take great pains, 

 especially with that sort which is made of the bark of the 

 poorou (Hibiscus tiliaceus), of which I have seen matting 

 almost as fine as coarse cloth. But the most beautiful sort, 

 vanne, which is white and extremely glossy and shining, is 

 made of the leaves of the wharra, a sort of Pandanus, of 

 which we had not an opportunity of .seeing either flowers 

 or fruit. The rest of their moeas, which are used to sit down 

 or sleep upon, are made of a variety of sorts of rushes, grasses, 

 etc. ; these they are extremely nimble in making, as indeed 

 they are of everything which is plaited, including baskets of 

 a thousand different patterns, some being very neat. As 

 for occasional baskets or panniers made of a cocoanut leaf, 

 or the little bonnets of the same material which they wear 

 to shade their eyes from the sun, every one knows how to 

 make them at once. As soon as the sun was pretty high, 

 the women who had been with us since morning, generally 

 sent out for cocoanut leaves, of which they made such 



1 Bancudus angustifolia, Rum ph. = Morinda angustifolia, Roxb. 



