184 
POLYNESIAN RESEARCHES. 
gum or varnish, for the purpose of rendering them 
impervious. 
But in the fabrication of glazed cloth, the 
natives of the Austral Islands, especially those of 
Rurutu, excel all with whom I am acquainted. 
Some of their pieces of cloth are thirty or forty 
yards square, exceedingly thick, and glazed on 
both sides, resembling the upper side of the 
English oil-cloth table-covers. It must have 
required immense labour to prepare it, yet it was 
abundant when they were first discovered. It is 
usually red on one side, and black on the other, 
the latter being highly varnished with a vegetable 
gum. 
In the manufacture of cloth, the females of all 
ranks were employed; and the queen, and wives 
of the chiefs of the highest rank, strove to excel 
in some department—in the elegance of the pat¬ 
tern, or the brilliancy of the colour. They are fond 
of society, and worked in large parties, in open 
and temporary houses erected for the purpose. 
Visiting one of these houses at Eimeo, I saw six¬ 
teen or twenty females all employed. The queen 
sat in the midst, surrounded by several chief 
women, each with a mallet in her hand, beating 
the bark that was spread before her. The queen 
worked as diligently and cheerfully as any present. 
The spar or square piece of wood on which the 
bark is beaten, being hollow on the under-side, 
every stroke produces a loud sound, and the noise 
occasioned by sixteen or twenty mallets going at 
one time, was to me almost deafening; while the 
queen and her friends seemed not only insensible 
to any inconvenience from it, but quite amused at 
its apparent effect on us. The sound of the cloth¬ 
beating mallet is not disagreeable, where heard at 
