If necessity is the mother of invention, it cannot be supposed to have been much exerted where the liberality of Nature has rendered the diligence of Art almost superfluous; yet there are many instances both of ingenuity and labour among these people, which, considering the want of metal for tools, do honour to both.
Their principal manufacture is their cloth, in the making and dying of which I think there are some particulars which may instruct even the artificers of Great Britain, and for that reason my description will be more minute.
Their cloth is of three kinds; and it is made of the bark of three different trees, the Chinese paper mulberry, the bread-fruit tree, and the tree which resembles the wild fig-tree of the West Indies.
The finest and whitest is made of the paper mulberry, Aouta; this is worn chiefly by the principal people, and when it is dyed red takes a better colour. A second sort, inferior in whiteness and softness, is made of the bread-fruit tree, Ooroo, and worn chiefly by the inferior people; and a third of the tree that resembles the fig, which is coarse and harsh, and of the colour of the darkest brown paper; this, though it is less pleasing both to the eye and the touch, is the most valuable, because it resists water, which the other two sorts will not. Of this, which is the most rare as well as the most useful, the greater part is perfumed, and worn by the Chiefs as a morning dress.
All these trees are propagated with great care, particularly the mulberry, which covers the largest part of the cultivated land, and is not fit for use after two or three years growth, when it is about six or eight feet high, and somewhat thicker than a man’s thumb; its excellence is to be thin, straight, tall, and without branches: the lower leaves, therefore, are carefully plucked off, with their germs, as often as there is any appearance of their producing a branch.
But though the cloth made of these three trees is different, it is all manufactured in the same manner; I shall, therefore, describe the process only in the fine sort, that is made of the mulberry. When the trees are of a proper size, they are drawn up, and stripped of their branches, after which the roots and tops are cut off; the bark of these rods being then slit up longitudinally is easily drawn off, and, when a proper quantity has been procured, it is carried down to some running water, in which it is deposited to soak, and secured from floating away by heavy stones: when it is supposed to be sufficiently softened, the women servants go down to the brook, and stripping themselves, sit down in the water, to separate the inner bark from the green part on the outside; to do this they place the under side upon a flat smooth board, and with the shell, which our dealers call tyger’s tongue, tellina gargadia, scrape it very carefully, dipping it continually in the water till nothing remains but the fine fibres of the inner coat. Being thus prepared in the afternoon, they are spread out upon plantain leaves in the evening; and in this part of the work there appears to be some difficulty, as the mistress of the family always superintends the doing of it: they are placed in lengths of about eleven or twelve yards, one by the side of another, till they are about a foot broad, and two or three layers are also laid one upon the other: care is taken that the cloth shall be in all parts of an equal thickness, so that if the bark happens to be thinner in any particular part of one layer than the rest, a piece that is somewhat thicker is picked out to be laid over it in the next. In this state it remains till the morning, when great part of the water which it contained when it was laid out, is either drained off or evaporated, and the several fibres adhere together, so as that the whole maybe raised from the ground in one piece.
It is then taken away, and laid upon the smooth side of a long piece of wood, prepared for the purpose, and beaten by the women servants, with instruments about a foot long and three inches thick, made of a hard wood which they call Etoa. The shape of this instrument is not unlike a square razor strop, only that the handle is longer, and each of its four sides or faces is marked, lengthways, with small grooves, or furrows, of different degrees of fineness; those on one side being of a width and depth sufficient to receive a small packthread, and the others finer in a regular gradation, so that the last are not more than equal to sewing silk.
They beat it first with the coarsest side of this mallet, keeping time like our smiths; it spreads very fast under the strokes, chiefly however in the breadth, and the grooves in the mallet mark it with the appearance of threads; it is successively beaten with the other sides, last with the finest, and is then fit for use. Sometimes, however, it is made still thinner, by beating it with the finest side of the mallet, after it has been several times doubled: it is then called Hoboo, and is almost as thin as a muslin; it becomes very white by being bleached in the air, but is made still whiter and softer by being washed and beaten again after it has been worn.
Of this cloth there are several sorts, of different degrees of fineness, in proportion as it is more or less beaten without being doubled: the other cloth also differs in proportion as it is beaten; but they differ from each other in consequence of the different materials of which they are made. The bark of the bread-fruit is not taken till the trees are considerably longer and thicker than those of the fig, the process afterwards is the same.
When cloth is to be washed after it has been worn, it is taken down to the brook, and left to soak, being kept fast to the bottom, as at first, by a stone; it is then gently wrung or squeezed; and sometimes several pieces of it are laid one upon another, and beaten together with the coarsest side of the mallet, and they are then equal in thickness to broad-cloth, and much more soft and agreeable to the touch, after they have been a little while in use, though when they come immediately from the mallet, they feel as if they had been starched. This cloth sometimes breaks in the beating, but is easily repaired by pasting on a patch with a gluten that is prepared from the root of the Pea, which is done so nicely that it cannot be discovered. The women also employ themselves in removing blemishes of every kind, as our ladies do in needle-work or knotting; sometimes when their work is intended to be very fine, they will paste an entire covering of hoboo over the whole. The principal excellencies of this cloth are its coolness and softness; and its imperfections, its being pervious to water like paper, and almost as easily torn.