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Guttar which serves to conduct the rain down and hinder it from soaking through the cloath beneath. Besides this they have several kinds of Cloth which is smooth and ingeniously enough workd: they are cheifly of two sorts, one coarse as our coarsest canvass and ten times stronger but much like it in the lying of the threads, the other is formd by many threads running lenghwise and a few only crossing them which tie them together. This last sort is sometimes stripd and always very pretty, for the threads that compose it are prepard so as to shine almost as much as silk; to both these they work borders of different colours in fine stiches something like Carpeting or girls Samplers in various patterns with an ingenuity truly surprizing to any one who will reflect that they are without needles. They have also Mats with which they sometimes cover themselves, but the great pride of their dress seems to consist in dogs fur, which they use so sparingly that to avoid waste they cut into long strips and sew them at a distance from each other upon their Cloth, varying often the coulours prettily enough. When first we saw these dresses we took them for the skins of Bears or some animal of that
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Voyaging Accounts |  |
© Derived from State Library of NSW Transcription of Banks's Journal page (vol. 2) 182, February 2004
Published by kind permission of the Library
To cite this page use: https://paulturnbull.org/project/southseas/journals/-banks_remarks-212.html