Page:Journal of the Right Hon. Sir Joseph Banks.djvu/301

1770 warp or long threads are laid very close together, and each crossing of the woof is distant at least an inch from another. They have besides this several other kinds of cloth, and work borders to them all, but as to their manner of doing so I must confess myself totally ignorant. I never but once saw any of this work going forward; it was done in a kind of frame of the breadth of the cloth, across which it was spread, and the cross threads worked in by hand, which must be very tedious; however, the workmanship sufficiently proves the workmen to be dexterous in their way. One notable point I must not forget, which is that to every garment of the better kind is fixed a bodkin, as if to remind the wearer that if it should be torn by any accident, no time should be lost before it is mended.

Nets for fishing they make in the same manner as ours, of an amazing size; a seine seems to be the joint work of a whole town, and I suppose the joint property. Of these I think I have seen as large as ever I saw in Europe. Besides this they have fish pots and baskets worked with twigs, and another kind of net which they most generally make use of that I have never seen in any country but this. It is circular, seven or eight feet in diameter, and two or three deep; it is stretched by two or three hoops and open at the top for nearly, but not quite, its whole extent. On the bottom is fastened the bait, a little basket containing the guts, etc., of fish and sea ears, which are tied to different parts of the net. This is let down to the bottom where the fish are, and when enough are supposed to be gathered together, it is drawn up with a very gentle motion, by which means the fish are insensibly lifted from the bottom. In this manner I have seen them take vast numbers of fish, and indeed it is a most general way of fishing all over the coast. Their hooks are ill made, generally of bone or shell fastened to a piece of wood; indeed, they seem to have little occasion for them, for with their nets they take fish much easier than they could with hooks.

In tilling they excel, as people who are themselves to eat the fruit of their industry, and have little else to do but