Ltetttenant Cook's Account. 7 



Cultivate for no other purpose. Dr. Solander thinks it is the same plant the bark of 

 which the Chinese make paper of. The}^ let this plant grow till it is about 6 or 8 

 feet high, the Stem is then about as thick as one's Thum or thicker; after this they 

 cut it down and lay it a Certain time in water. This makes the Bark strip off easy, 

 the outside of which is scraped off with a rough Shell. After this is done it looks 

 like long strips of ragged linnen; these they la}- together, hy means of a fine paist 

 made of some sort of a root, to the Breadth of a yard more or less, and in length 6, 8 

 or 10 Yards or more according to the use it is for. After it is thus put together it is 

 beat out to its proper breadth and fineness, upon a long square piece of wood, with 

 wooden beaters, the Cloth being kept wet all the time. The beaters are made of hard 

 wood with four square sides, are about 3 or 4 inches broad and cut into grooves of 

 different fineness ; this makes the doth look at first sight as if it was wove with 

 thread, but I believe the principal use of the Groves is to facilitate the beating it out, 

 in the doing of which the}" often beat holes in it, or one place thinner than another; 

 but this is easil}' repair'd by pasting on small bits, and this the}- do in such a manner, 

 that the Cloth is not the least injured. The finest sort when bleached is verj- white 

 and comes nearest to fine Cotton. Thick cloth, especiall}- fine, is made b}' pasting 

 two or more thickness's of thin cloth, made for that Purpose, together. Coarse thick 

 cloth and ordinar}- thin cloth is made of the Bark of Bread fruit Trees, and I think 

 I have been told that it is sometimes made from the Bark of other trees. The mak- 

 ing of Cloth is wholy the work of the women, in which all ranks are employ'd. 

 Their common colours are red, brown and yellow, with which they dye some pieces 

 just as their fancy leads them."^ 



This is all that Cook has to tell us, and though brief, the account is accurate. 

 We turn to the journal of Sir Joseph Banks and we see where Dr. Hawkesworth got 

 most of the story he puts into the mouth of the great navigator. Speaking of the 

 Tahitians our journalist continues:' 



"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 seme 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 mul- 

 berry {Moi'us papyriferd) [Broussonefia papyrifera'], the bread-fruit tree {Si/odium 

 utile) \^Artocarpus incisa\, and a tree much resembling the wild fig-tree of the West 

 Indies {Fictis prolixa). Of the first, which they name oonta \_aiitc^^ they make the 



••Journal, p. 99. ' Banks' Journal, p. 145. 



