Another considerable manufacture is matting of various kinds; some of which is finer, and better, in every respect, than any we have in Europe: the coarser sort serves them to sleep upon, and the finer to wear in wet weather. With the fine, of which there are also two sorts, much pains is taken, especially with that made of the bark of the Poerou, the Hibiscus tiliaceus of Linnæus, some of which is as fine as a coarse cloth; the other sort, which is still more beautiful, they call Vanne; it is white, glossy, and shining, and is made of the leaves of their Wharrou, a species of the Pandanus, of which we had no opportunity to see either the flowers or fruit: they have other matts, or as they call them Moeas, to sit or to sleep upon, which are formed of a great variety of rushes and grass, and which they make, as they do every thing else that is plaited, with amazing facility and dispatch.
They are also very dexterous in making basket and wicker work; their baskets are of a thousand different patterns, many of them exceedingly neat; and the making them is an art that every one practises, both men and women: they make occasional baskets and panniers of the cocoa-nut leaf in a few minutes, and the women who visited us early in a morning used to send, as soon as the sun was high, for a few of the leaves, of which they made little bonnets to shade their faces, at so small an expence of time and trouble, that, when the sun was again low in the evening, they used to throw them away. These bonnets, however, did not cover the head, but consisted only of a band that went round it, and a shade that projected from the forehead.
Of the bark of the Poerou, they make ropes and lines, from the thickness of an inch to the size of a small packthread: with these they make nets for fishing: of the fibres of the cocoa-nut they make thread, for fastening together the several parts of their canoes, and belts, either round or flat, twisted or plaited; and of the bark of the Erowa, a kind of nettle which grows in the mountains, and is therefore rather scarce, they make the best fishing lines in the world: with these they hold the strongest and most active fish, such as Bonetas and Albicores, which would snap our strongest silk lines in a minute, though they are twice as thick.
They make also a kind of seine, of a coarse broad grass, the blades of which are like flags; these they twist and tie together in a loose manner, till the net, which is about as wide as a large sack, is from sixty to eighty fathom long: this they haul in shoal smooth water, and its own weight keeps it so close to the ground that scarcely a single fish can escape.
In every expedient, indeed, for taking fish, they are exceedingly ingenious; they make harpoons of cane, and point them with hard wood, which in their hands strike fish more effectually, than those which are headed with iron can do in ours, setting aside the advantage of ours being fastened to a line, so that the fish is secured if the hook takes place, though it does not mortally wound him.
Of fish-hooks they have two sorts, admirably adapted in their construction as well to the purpose they are to answer, as to the materials of which they are made. One of these, which they call Wittee Wittee, is used for towing. The shank is made of mother-of-pearl, the most glossy that can be got: the inside, which is naturally the brightest, is put behind. To these hooks a tuft of white dog’s or hog’s hair is fixed, so as somewhat to resemble the tail of a fish; these implements, therefore, are both hook and bait, and are used with a rod of bamboo, and line of Erowa. The fisher, to secure his success, watches the flight of the birds which constantly attend the Bonetas when they swim in shoals, by which he directs his canoe, and when he has the advantage of these guides, he seldom returns without a prize.
The other kind of hook is also made of mother-of-pearl, or some other hard shell: they cannot make them bearded like our hooks; but to effect the same purpose, they make the point turn inwards. These are made of all sizes, and used to catch various kinds of fish with great success. The manner of making them is very simple, and every fisherman is his own artificer: the shell is first cut into square pieces, by the edge of another shell, and wrought into a form corresponding with the outline of the hook by pieces of coral, which are sufficiently rough to perform the office of a file; a hole is then bored in the middle; the drill being no other than the first stone they pick up that has a sharp corner: this they fix into the end of a piece of bamboo, and turn it between the hands like a chocolate-mill; when the shell is perforated, and the hole sufficiently wide, a small file of coral is introduced, by the application of which the hook is in a short time completed, few costing the artificer more time than a quarter of an hour.
Of their masonry, carving, and architecture, the reader has already formed some idea from the account that has been given of the Morais, or repositories of the dead: the other most important article of building and carving is their boats; and perhaps, to fabricate one of their principal vessels with their tools is as great a work, as to build a British man of war with ours.
They have an adze of stone; a chissel, or gouge of bone, generally that of a man’s arm between the wrist and elbow; a rasp of coral; and the skin of a sting-ray, with coral sand, as a file or polisher.
This is a complete catalogue of their tools, and with these they build houses, construct canoes, hew stone, and fell, cleave, carve, and polish timber.