But I must not conclude my account of the domestic life of these people without mentioning their personal cleanliness. If that which lessens the good of life and increases the evil is vice, surely cleanliness is a virtue: the want of it tends to destroy both beauty and health, and mingles disgust with our best pleasures. The natives of Otaheite, both men and women, constantly wash their whole bodies in running water three times every day; once as soon as they rise in the morning, once at noon, and again before they sleep at night, whether the sea or river is near them or at a distance. I have already observed, that they wash not only the mouth but the hands at their meals, almost between every morsel; and their clothes, as well as their persons, are kept without spot or stain; so that in a large company of these people nothing is suffered but heat, which, perhaps, is more than can be said of the politest assembly in Europe. CHAP. XVIII. OF THE MANUFACTURES, BOATS, AND NAVIGATION OF OTAHEITE. IF necessity is the mother of invention, it cannot be supposed to have been much exerted where the liberality of Nature has rendered the diligence of Art almost superfluous; yet there are many instances both of ingenuity and labour among these people, which, considering the want of metal for tools, do honour to both. Their principal manufacture is their cloth, in the making and dying of which I think there are some particulars which may instruct even the artificers of Great Britain, and for that reason my description will be more minute. Their cloth is of three kinds; and it is made of the bark of three different trees, the Chinese paper mulberry, the bread-fruit tree, and the tree which resembles the wild fig-tree of the West Indies. 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 inferior 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 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.