MANUFACTURES. 281 



shoulders by, — in these various small articles are 

 carried, among' them the spatula and calabash, with 

 lime to be used in betel chewing— and a netted bag-, 

 a foot and a half in width and one in depth. Their 

 rope is beautifully made of the long tough stringy 

 bark of a tree, strongly twisted and laid up in three 

 strands, and for finer lines and twine a kind of flax, 

 resembling the New Zealand, but still more the 

 Manila sort, is used here. The finest sample of the 

 prepared material which I saw measured eleven 

 feet in length, and consisted of a bundle of rather 

 fine white fibres. Although very much coarser 

 than our hemp, it is of nearly uniform size, and 

 possesses considerable strength, but breaks easily 

 when knotted. We saw it in considerable quantity, 

 but had no means of ascertaining the plant from 

 which it is derived, probably, however, a banana of 

 some kind. We occasionally saw pieces of a white 

 soft papery cloth, apparently similar to the tapa of 

 Polynesia, and like it made of the inner bark of some 

 small tree, but it did not appear to be applied to 

 much use. 



In the Louisiade we had not observed the betel 

 pepper, but here it was found in common use — both 

 the leaf and green fruit, especially the latter, being 

 added to the Ume and areca-nut. StUl betel chew- 

 ing, although a very general habit, is by no means 

 universally practised, for many elderly people re- 

 tained the original whiteness of the teeth. By the 

 males it appears to be adopted only after attaining 



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