Page:Voyage in search of La Perouse, volume 1 (Stockdale).djvu/446

418 Such is the ordinary dress of the European ladies. The native women, in good circumstances, who live in the town, wear dresses of the same form, but commonly black: by the country women, blue is preferred to every other colour.

The female slaves wear a sort of shift, by way of a gown; but it is not divided before, like that of the free women.

The free men dress their hair with a bent comb. The slaves tie it up with a handkerchief.

The Chinese, it is well known, received spices from the Moluccas many ages before those islands were seized upon by the Europeans. The Greeks and Romans were also acquainted with them; and they were long objects of research with the navigators who first penetrated into the oriental seas.

Those precious aromatics were then confined to a small number of islands; but have been since transplanted into very distant countries, where they succeed perfectly well. We have grounds to hope, that our colony of Cayenne, will one day rival the Moluccas, and by producing a much greater quantity of spices, will diminish their price, and bring them into more general use. Those articles are also successfully cultivated in the isles of France and Bourbon.

We took on board the Recherche two hinds and