PAYMENT IN COCOA-NUT OIL, 231 
quite amusing to see goats' dogs’ and cats’ skins 
collected to be prepared for book-covers. Some¬ 
times they procured the tough skin of a large dog, 
or an old goat, with long shaggy matted hair and 
beard attached to it, or the thin skin of a wild 
kitten taken in the mountains. As soon as the 
natives had seen how they were prepared, which 
was simply by extracting the hair and the oil, they 
did this at their own houses; and in walking 
through the district at this period, no object was 
more common than a skin stretched on a frame, 
and suspended on the branch of a tree, to dry in 
the sun. 
All the books, hitherto in circulation among the 
people, had been gratuitously distributed; but. 
when the first portion of Scripture was finished, 
as it was a larger book than had yet been pub¬ 
lished, it was thought best to require a small 
equivalent for it, lest the people should expect 
that books afterwards printed would be given also, 
and lest, from the circumstance of their receiving 
them without payment, they should be induced to 
undervalue them. A small quantity of cocoa-nut 
oil, the article they could most easily procure, was 
therefore demanded for each book, and cheerfully 
paid by every native. This was not done with a 
new of deriving any profit from the sale of the 
books, but merely to teach the people their value ; 
as no higher price was required than what it was 
supposed would cover the expense of paper and 
printing materials,—and we still continued to dis¬ 
tribute elementary books gratuitously. 
The season occupied in the printing and binding 
of these books was one of incessant labour, which, 
in a tropical climate, and at a season when the sun 
was vertical, was often found exceedingly oppres- 
