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[Page 431]

Manners & Customs of the S. Sea Islanders

afternoon in the evening these peices are spread out upon Plantain leaves in doing this I suppose there is some dificulty as the mistress of the family generaly presides all that I could observe was that they laid them 2 or 3 layers thick, & seemd very carefull to make them every where of the same equal thickness; so that if any part of a peice of Bark was scrapd thinner than it ought, another peice of the same thin quality, was laid over it, in order to render it of the same thickness as the next. When laid out in this manner the size of the peice of cloth was 11 or 12 yards long & not more than a foot broad for as the longitudinal fibres are all laid lenghwise they do not expect it to stretch in that direction tho they well know how considerably it would will in the other in this state they suffer it to remain till morning by which time a large proportion of the water with which when laid out it was is thouroughly soakd was is either draind off or evaporated & the fibres begin to adhere together so that the whole

[In right hand margin]
just contrary to that purpose

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