CHAP. VI. ROFI A CLOTH. _ NATIVE BASKETS. 151 



loom extremely simple ; the process is laborious and slow. At 

 other times I have seen the people, as I passed through the 

 villages, arranging the threads for their warp, under the shade 

 of overspreading trees outside their dwellings. 



The coloured patterns of finer cloths are produced by dying 

 the threads, not by colouring or printing the cloth after it is 

 woven. Hence they resemble what in England are called 

 gingham and plaid patterns. These patterns are arranged 

 with great exactness and taste, and the colours, almost always 

 rich and deep, are much more varied and numerous than 

 might be expected, considering the ignorance of chemistry in 

 their formation. I saw many articles of dress, such as cloaks, 

 coats, jackets, and waistcoats, made of rofia cloth, both in 

 Madagascar and JNIauritius, and was surprised at the fresh- 

 ness of the colours even in the oldest cloths. 



Native baskets of various sizes and materials were also 

 brought to me for sale. Some of these were oblong, like a 

 lady's work-box in size, and generally woven in a neat pattern 

 of red and white, or with the addition of black. Others were 

 smaller and square, covered "vvith a lid to which a handle was 

 attached in a curious manner. But the most beautiful was a 

 small kind of basket or woven box, made of a silvery white 

 kind of grass split into very fine threads or strips, plaited 

 with extreme neatness, and almost endless diversity of beau- 

 tiful pattern. These boxes are oblong or square, and vary in 

 size from half an inch to two, three, or nine inches square. 

 Nothing can surpass the delicacy of the workmanship of these 

 articles, in which, like the mats, there is no careless joining, 

 loose thread, or unfinished part to be found. What renders 

 them more remarkable is that they are all, even the smallest, 

 lined with a different kind of plait, so that they have the 

 same firmness, durability, and general completeness as the 

 matting. Without losing anything of this, they are many of 

 them so small as scarcely to contain a lady's ring, and cer- 



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