While on this matter of the flagstaff, I must say that it came into my mind one day that I had seen the native women making a kind of cloth out of the bark of a tree, though I had not observed what tree it was. I thought we might contrive to make a pendant in the same way, and after some trials of the bark of different trees we discovered that the bread-fruit tree was best fitted for our purpose, and by diligently beating with stones upon a broad strip of the bark, moistened with water, we flattened and stretched it until it became a sort of thin fabric, which would serve for a flag, though a makeshift one. But having made it, we could not at first devise a means of attaching it to the staff, having no nails, or anything that could be used in their stead. There did, indeed, come out of the bark as we bruised it, a sticky substance which we hoped might serve as glue, but we found that it was not sufficiently tenacious. However, after some thought I hit upon the device of stringing the flag on a strand of creeper, and then knotting the ends of this about the pole. Our success in this particular gave us much contentment, and Billy declared that now that we knew how to make cloth we must discover a means of making needles and thread, so that we could patch our shirts and breeches, which were already miserably rent and tattered. But this was too great a puzzle for us at the moment, though we solved it afterwards, as I shall tell in its place. [Sidenote: Pottery] Having started to tell some of the matters that occupied us while we were pondering the means of setting up the posts of our house, I may mention here another notion that came into my head. We had used some of the clayey earth of the hill-side to fill the interstices of our small house, and being often at a loss for vessels in which to cook our food, and also to carry water--as yet we did not drink it much, for very good reasons--I thought of trying to make some pots and pans. I had, to be sure, no turning wheel, nor could I make one, nor had I the prepared flints or the lead for glaze, such as were employed in my uncle's factory. But I had seen the native people making pottery on the island at which we touched, and that being, so to speak, my own line of business, I had taken more particular note of it than of any other of their devices.