ois le jour, le matin, a midi, et sur le soir." _Lettres
Edifiantes et Curieuses_, tom. xv. p. 314.--D.]

SECTION XI.

_Employments of the Women, at the Friendly Islands.--Of the
Men.--Agriculture.--Construction of their Houses.--Their working
Tools.--Cordage and fishing Implements.--Musical Instruments.--Weapons.
--Food and Cookery.--Amusements.--Marriage.--Mourning Ceremonies for the
Dead.--Their Divinities.--Notions about the Soul, and a Future
State.--Their Places of Worship.--Government.--Manner of paying
Obeisance to the King.--Account of the Royal Family.--Remarks on their
Language, and a Specimen of it.--Nautical, and other Observations_.

Their domestic life is of that middle kind, neither so laborious as to
be disagreeable, nor so vacant as to suffer them to degenerate into
indolence. Nature has done so much for their country, that the first can
hardly occur, and their disposition seems to be a pretty good bar to the
last. By this happy combination of circumstances, their necessary labor
seems to yield in its turn to their recreations, in such a manner, that
the latter are never interrupted by the thoughts of being obliged to
recur to the former, till satiety makes them wish for such a transition.

The employment of the women is of the easy kind, and, for the most part,
such as may be executed in the house. The manufacturing their cloth is
wholly consigned to their care. Having already described the process, I
shall only add, that they have this cloth of different degrees of
fineness. The coarser sort, of which they make very large pieces, does
not receive the impression of any pattern. Of the finer sort, they have
some that is striped and chequered, and of other patterns differently
coloured. But how these colours are laid on, I cannot say, as I never
saw any of this sort made. The cloth, in general, will resist water for
some time; but that which has the strongest glaze will resist longest.

The manufacture next in consequence, and also within the department of
the women, is that of their mats, which excel every thing I have seen at
any other place, both as to their texture and their beauty. In
particular, many of them are so superior to those made at Otaheite, that
they are not a bad article to carry thither by way of trade. Of these
mats, they have seven or eight different sorts, for the purposes of
wearing or sleeping upon, and many are merely ornamental. The last are
chiefly made from the tough m