these
they build houses, construct canoes, hew stone, and fell, cleave, carve,
and polish timber. The stone which makes the blade of their adzes is a
kind of basaltes, of a blackish or grey colour, not very hard, but of
considerable toughness: they are of different sizes; some, that are
intended for felling, weigh from six to eight pounds; others, that are
used for carving, not more than so many ounces; but it is necessary to
sharpen both almost every minute; for which purpose, a stone and a
cocoa-nut shell full of water are always at hand. Their greatest
exploit, to which these tools are less equal than to any other, is
felling a tree; this requires many hands, and the constant labour of
several days."[8] The earliest missionaries expressed their astonishment
that with such simple tools the natives could carve so neatly and finish
so smoothly; our most ingenious workmen, they declared, could not excel
them.[9]

[8] J. Cook, _Voyages_, i. 204 _sq._

[9] J. Wilson, _op. cit._ p. 400.

The principal manufacture of the Society Islanders was the making of the
cloth which they used for their garments. The material for the cloth was
furnished by the bark of several trees, including the paper-mulberry,
the bread-fruit tree, and a species of wild fig-tree. Having been
stripped from the tree and soaked in water, the bark was spread out on a
beam and beaten with heavy wooden mallets, till it was reduced to the
proper degree of thinness and flexibility. The finest and most valuable
kind of cloth was made chiefly, and sometimes entirely, from the bark of
the paper-mulberry and was bleached pure white. But vegetable dyes were
also commonly employed to stain the cloth with a variety of hues
arranged in patterns. The favourite colours were a brilliant scarlet and
a bright yellow; Captain Cook described the scarlet as exceedingly
beautiful, brighter and more delicate than any we have in Europe; it was
produced by a mixture of the juices of two vegetables, the fruit of a
species of fig and the leaves of the _Cordia sebastina_ or _etou_ tree.
The patterns were in this bright scarlet on a yellow ground; formerly
they were altogether devoid of uniformity or regularity, yet exhibited a
considerable degree of taste. The bales of bark-cloth were sometimes as
much as two hundred yards long by four yards wide; the whole bale was in
a single piece, being composed of narrow strips joined together by being
beaten with grooved mallets. A