1769 CLOTH MANUFACTURE 147 
where of equal thickness, so that if any part of a piece 
of bark had been scraped too thin, another thin piece 
was laid over it, in order to render it of the same thick- 
ness as the rest. When laid out in this manner, a piece 
of cloth is eleven or twelve yards long, and not more 
than a foot broad, for as the longitudinal fibres are all 
laid lengthwise, they do not expect it to stretch in that 
direction, though they well know how considerably it will 
in the other. 
In this state they suffer it to remain till morning, by 
which time a large proportion of the water with which it was 
thoroughly soaked has either drained off or evaporated, and 
the fibres begin to adhere together, so that the whole may 
be lifted from the ground without dropping in pieces. It 
is then taken away by the women servants, who beat it in 
the following manner. They lay it upon a long piece of 
wood, one side of which is very even and flat, this side being 
put under the cloth: as many women then as they can 
muster, or as can work at the board together, begin to beat it. 
Each is furnished with a baton made of the hard wood, etoa 
(Casuarina equisetifolia): it is about a foot long and square 
with a handle; on each of the four faces of the square are 
many small furrows, whose width differs on each face, and 
which cover the whole face. They begin with the coarsest 
side, keeping time with their strokes in the same manner as 
smiths, and continue until the cloth, which extends rapidly 
under these strokes, shows by the too great thinness of the 
groves which are made in it that a finer side of the beater 
is requisite. In this manner they proceed to the finest side, 
with which they finish; unless the cloth is to be of that 
very fine sort hoboo, which is almost as thin as muslin. In 
making this last they double the piece several times, and 
beat it out again and afterwards bleach it in the sun and 
air, which in these climates produce whiteness in a very 
1 The instrument is apparently something like a razor strop, of which the 
cross section is square, having longitudinal furrows, a varying number on 
each face. By the ‘‘coarsest side” is to be understood the face with the 
fewest furrows, which are larger and more deeply indented. 
