Page 125

Joseph Banks's Descriptions of Places

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South Sea Islands (continued) Their Method of manufacturing the Bark is the same in all the sorts: one description of it will therefore be Sufficient: first then, the thin cloth they begin to make thus. When the trees are arrivd at a sufficient size they are drawn up and the roots and topps cut of and strippd of their leaves; the best of the Aouta are in this state about 3 or 4 feet long and as thick as a mans finger but the ooroo are considerably larger. The bark of these rods is then slit up longitudinaly and in this manner drawn off the stick; when all are stripd the bark is carried to some brook or running water into which it is laid to soak with stones upon it and in this situation it remains some days. When sufficiently soakd the women servants go down to the river, and stripping themselves set down in the water and scrape the peices of bark, holding them against a flat smooth board, with the shell calld by the English shell merchants Tygers tongue Tellina Gargadia, dipping it Continualy in Water untill all the outer green bark is rubbd and washd away and nothing remains but the very fine fibres of the inner bark. This work is generaly finishd in the Voyaging Accounts © Derived from State Library of NSW Transcription of Banks's Journal page (vol.1) 370, February 2004 Published by kind permission of the Library To cite this page use: https://paulturnbull.org/project/southseas/journals/-banks_remarks-125.html