210 L I E U T E N A N T C O O K ’S VO Y A GE
CHA P . XVIII. '
O f the M anufactures, Boats, and Navigation o f Otaheite.
IT neceflity is the mother of invention, it cannot be fup-
pofed to have been much exerted where the liberality of
Nature has rendered the diligence of Art almoft fuperfluous;
yet there are many inftances both of ingenuity and labour
among thefe people, which, confidering the want o f metal
for tools, do honour to both.
Manufac- Their principal manufacture is their cloth, in the mak-
ing and dying of which I think there are fome particulars
which may inftruCt even the artificers of Great Britain, and
for that reafon my defcription will be more minute.
Their cloth is of three kinds; and it is made of the bark
o f three different trees, the Chinefe paper mulberry, the
bread-fruit tree, and the tree which refembles the wild fig-
tree of the Weft Indies.
The fineft and whiteft 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 fecond fort, inferior
in whitenefs and foftnefs, is made of the bread-fruit tree,
€oroo, and worn chiefly by the inferior people; and a third
of the tree that refembles the fig, which is coarfe and harfh,
and of the colour of the darkeft brown paper: this, though
it is lefs pleafing both to the eye and the touch, is the moft
valuable, becaufe it refills water, which the other two forts
will not. Of this, which is the moft rare as well as the moft
ufeful,