The shortness of our stay and few opportunities we had of going among these people gave us no opportunities of seing what arts or manufactures they might have among them. That they spin, weave and dye their cloth we however made a shift to learn for tho we never saw them practise any of these arts yet the instruments of them accidentaly fell in our way: first a machine for clearing cotton of its seeds which was made in miniature much upon the same principles as ours in Europe, it consisting of 2 cylinders about as thick as a mans thumb the one of which was turnd round by a plain wynch handle, and that turnd the other round by an endless worm at their extremities. The whole was not above 7 inches high and about twice as long; how it answerd I know not but know that it had been much workd and that there were many peices of cotton hanging on different parts of it, which alone inducd me to beleive it a real

Voyaging Accounts