In the coverings and curtains of the tent we have an exercise of art worthy of special notice. A mingling of hair, wool, or fur plaited together, and fastened down by some natural threads, as hairs of greater length than usual, blades of tough grass, or other vegetable fibres separated from trees and plants, was probably the first advance toward such a fabric. Or it might be after the fashion of a net, so early in use, only with meshes unusually minute. Or hairs of fur, or down, bound about the feet, to prevent inconvenience, would thus become pressed together, and might suggest a somewhat solid and yet elastic fabric. But the idea, however obtained, of a cloth-like substance produced by fibres pressed together, would doubtless lead to efforts to produce it, and here the arts of spinning and weaving take their rise; and the coverings and curtains of the tent stand in relation to the dresses of the people. An early mode of providing them would, doubtless, be to stretch a number of long threads side by side, and then to pass another alternately above and below them, so that with them this thread might be interwoven. The attempt made on a large scale might lead to another on a smaller, and this to others still more minute. In like manner, the primary use of broad pieces might suggest the employment of narrower ones, till small fibres were used for the same purpose. A mat-mantle was usually worn by the secondary chiefs of the South Sea islands prior to the introduction of European clothing. This article was carefully prepared from the hibiscus bark; that of the young shoots being preferred, which having been slit into shreds, were woven at the top by the hand with singular neatness; and the sight of one of these mat-mantles in the British National Museum, may well suggest similar processes as passed through in times of primitive simplicity.