The finest and whitest is made of the paper mulberry, _Aouta_; this is worn chiefly by the principal people, and when it is dyed red takes a better colour. A second sort, inferior in whiteness and softness, is made of the bread-fruit tree, _Ooroo_, and worn chiefly by the interior people; and a third of the tree that resembles the fig, which is coarse and harsh, and of the colour of the darkest brown paper: This, though it is less pleasing both to the eye and to the touch, is the most valuable, because it resists water, which the other two sorts will not. Of this, which is the most rare as well as the most useful, the greater part is perfumed, and worn by the chiefs as a morning dress. All these trees are propagated with great care, particularly the mulberry, which covers the largest part of the cultivated land, and is not fit for use after two or three years growth, when it is about six or eight feet high, and somewhat thicker than a man's thumb; its excellence is to be thin, straight, tall, and without branches: The lower leaves, therefore, are carefully plucked off, with their germs, as often as there is any appearance of their producing a branch. But though the cloth made of these three trees is different, it is all manufactured in the same manner; I shall, therefore, describe the process only in the fine sort, that is made of the mulberry.[17] When the trees are of a proper size, they are drawn up, and stripped of their branches, after which the roots and tops are cut off; the bark of these rods being then slit up longitudinally is easily drawn off, and, when a proper quantity has been procured, it is carried down to some running water, in which it is deposited to soak, and secured from floating away by heavy stones: When it is supposed to be sufficiently softened, the women servants go down to the brook, and stripping themselves, sit down in the water, to separate the inner bark from the green bark on the outside; to do this they place the under side upon a flat smooth board, and with the shell which our dealers call Tyger's tongue, _Tellina gargadia_, scrape it very carefully, dipping it continually in the water till nothing remains but the fine fibres of the inner coat. Being thus prepared in the afternoon, they are spread out upon plantain leaves in the evening; and in this part of the work there appears to be some difficulty, as the mistress of the family always superintends the doing of it: They are placed in lengths of about eleven or twelve yards, one by the side of another, till they are about a foot broad, and two or three layers are also laid one upon the other: Care is taken that the cloth shall be in all parts of an equal thickness, so that if the bark happens to be thinner in any particular part of one layer than the rest, a piece that is somewhat thicker is picked out to be laid over it in the next. In this state it remains till the morning, when great part of the