“The natives,” writes Sir Samuel, “are particularly neat in all they do; they never bring anything to sell unless carefully packed in the neatest parcels, generally formed of the bark of the plantain, and sometimes of the inner portions of reeds stripped into snow-white stalks, which are bound round the parcels with the utmost care. Should the plantain cider, ‘marossa,’ be brought in a jar, the mouth is neatly covered with a finger-like mat of these clean white rushes split into shreds. Not even tobacco is brought for sale unless most carefully packed. During a journey, a pretty, bottle-shaped, long-necked gourd is carried, with a store of plantain cider; the mouth of the bottle is stopped with a bundle of the white rush shreds, through which a reed is inserted that reaches to the bottom; thus the drink can be sucked up during the march without the necessity of halting; nor is it possible to spill it by the movement of walking. “The natives,” he adds, “prepare the skins of goats very beautifully, making them as soft as chamois leather; these they cut into squares, and sew them together as neatly as would be effected by a European tailor, converting them into mantles, which are prized far more highly than bark-cloth, on account of their durability. They manufacture their own needles, not by boring the eye, but by sharpening the end into a fine point, and turning it over, the extremity being hammered into a small cut in the body of the needle to prevent it from catching.”