BASKETS. MATS. CLOTH. 375 



water, inebriated the fish to such a degree, that they might 

 be caught by the hands.* Their fishing-lines were made 

 of the bark of the Erowa, a kind of nettle which grows in 

 the mountains, and were described as " the best fishing-lines 

 in the world," better even than our strongest silk lines. 

 They also used the fibres of the cocoa-nut for making threads, 

 with which they fastened together the various parts of their 

 canoes. They were very dexterous in making basket and 

 wicker-work, "of a thousand different patterns, many of 

 them exceedingly neat ; " they also made many sorts of mats 

 from rushes, grass, and bark, which were woven with great 

 neatness and regularity r although entirely by hand and with- 

 out any loom or machinery, f But their principal manu- 

 facture was a kind of cloth, made from bark, and of which 

 there were three varieties, obtained respectively from the 

 paper-mulberry, which was the best, the bread-fruit tree, and 

 a kind of fig. This last, though less ornamental, was more 

 useful than either of the others, because it resisted water, 

 which they did not. All three kinds of cloth were made in 

 the same way, the difference between them being only in the 

 material. When the trees were of a proper size, that is to 

 say about six or eight feet high, and somewhat thicker than a 

 man's thumb, they were pulled up and the roots and branches 

 were cut off. The bark being slit up longitudinally, it peeled 

 off readily, and was then soaked for some time in running 

 water. After this the green outside bark was carefully scraped 

 off with a shell, and the strips were laid out in the evening to 

 dry, being placed one by the side of another "till they are 

 about a foot broad, and two or three layers are also laid one 

 upon the other." By the morning a great part of the water 

 had drained off or evaporated, and " the several fibres adhere 

 together, so as that the whole may be raised from the ground 



* Forster, Observations made during a Voyage Round the World, p. 463 ; 

 Ellis, vol. u., p. 288. f Ellis, vol. ii., pp. 179, 180. 



