62 ADVENTURE IN NEW ZEALAND. Chap. III. 
to be to cut through all but the fibres, which border 
closely on the glossy portion. The half-leaves, thus 
prepared, were handed to a third workman. He, taking 
a bundle of them in his left hand at the transverse cut, 
and spreading them out like a fan, with the glossy side 
upwards, took a mussel-shell between the finger and 
thumb of his right hand to perform the next operation. 
This consists in giving each half-leaf a longitudinal 
scrape from the transverse cut in the middle to each 
end. He held the leaves extended by seizing the ends 
of each in succession with his big toe. Flax-scraping 
is always performed in a sitting posture, and one foot 
works quite as hard as either of the hands. The dex- 
terity and quickness with which this whole operation 
was performed drew from us repeated exclamations of 
delight, of which the performers seemed not a little 
proud. The result of the scrape is to make about five- 
sixths of the leaf, beginning from the dull side, drop 
off on to the ground in two pieces. The fibres which 
compose the glossy surface remain in the hand of the 
operator, of the full length of the leaf, and he puts 
them aside, and proceeds with another bunch. The 
splitters and transverse-cutters worked faster than the 
scrapers, and when they had operated on all that was ga- 
thered, they also took up their mussel-shell and scraped 
in their turn. The short pieces which I have described 
as dropping on to the ground were treated as refuse, 
and allowed to dry or rot ; the full-length fibre of the 
glossy side alone being preserved to undergo further 
processes previous to manufacture into mats. The only 
use that I have ever seen made of the short refuse is for 
the outer portion of a rough mat, much resembling the 
thatch of a house. These leaves being woven in close 
rows, hanging downwards one over the other, into the 
interior texture of the mat, are perfectly impenetrable 
