ort their first opinions, and by a perverse and
preposterous sort of shame, hazard their country rather than endanger
their own reputation, or venture the being suspected to have wanted
foresight in the expedients that they at first proposed. And therefore
to prevent this, they take care that they may rather be deliberate than
sudden in their motions.

OF THEIR TRADES, AND MANNER OF LIFE.

Agriculture is that which is so universally understood among them, that
no person, either man or woman, is ignorant of it; they are instructed
in it from their childhood, partly by what they learn at school, and
partly by practice; they being led out often into the fields, about the
town, where they not only see others at work, but are likewise exercised
in it themselves. Besides agriculture, which is so common to them all,
every man has some peculiar trade to which he applies himself, such as
the manufacture of wool, or flax, masonry, smith's work, or carpenter's
work; for there is no sort of trade that is in great esteem among them.
Throughout the island they wear the same sort of clothes without any
other distinction, except what is necessary to distinguish the two
sexes, and the married and unmarried. The fashion never alters; and as
it is neither disagreeable nor uneasy, so it is suited to the climate,
and calculated both for their summers and winters. Every family makes
their own clothes; but all among them, women as well men, learn one or
other of the trades formerly mentioned. Women, for the most part, deal
in wool and flax, which suit best with their weakness, leaving the ruder
trades to the men. The same trade generally passes down from father to
son, inclinations often following descent; but if any man's genius lies
another way, he is by adoption translated into a family that deals in
the trade to which he is inclined: and when that is to be done, care is
taken not only by his father, but by the magistrate, that he may be put
to a discreet and good man. And if after a person has learned one trade,
he desires to acquire another, that is also allowed, and is managed in
the same manner as the former. When he has learned both, he follows that
which he likes best, unless the public has more occasion for the other.

The chief, and almost the only business of the Syphogrants, is to take
care that no man may live idle, but that every one may follow his trade
diligently: yet they do not wear themselves out with perpetual toil,
f