Series 03: Joseph Banks - Endeavour journal, 25 August 1768 - 12 July 1771 (vol. 2) - No. 0471
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[Page 471]
367
Some account of Savu
machine otherwise from its slightness I should have taken it for no more than a duch toy of the best sort. their spinning geer I also once saw: it consisted of a bobbin on which a small quantity of thread was wound & a kind of distaff filld with cotton from whence I conjecture that they spin by hand as our women in Europe did before wheels were introducd & I am told still do in some parts of Europe where that improvement is not receiv'd their Loom I also saw it had this merit in preference to ours that the web was not stretchd on a frame but only extended by a peice of wood at each end round one of which the cloth was rolld as the threads were round the other I had not an opportunity of seing it usd so cannot at all describe it only can say that it appeard very simple much more so than ours & that the shuttle was as long as the breadth of the web which was about 1/2 a yard in all probability from this circumstance & the unsteadiness of a web fixd to nothing the work must go on very slow that they dyed their own cloth we first guessd by the indigo which