“Agriculture is that which is so universally understood among them that
no person, either man or woman, is ignorant of it; they are instructed
in it from their childhood, partly by what they learn at school, and
partly by practice, they being led out often into the fields about the
town, where they not only see others at work but are likewise exercised
in it themselves. Besides agriculture, which is so common to them all,
every man has some peculiar trade to which he applies himself; such as
the manufacture of wool or flax, masonry, smith’s work, or carpenter’s
work; for there is no sort of trade that is in great esteem among them.
Throughout the island they wear the same sort of clothes, without any
other distinction except what is necessary to distinguish the two sexes
and the married and unmarried. The fashion never alters, and as it is
neither disagreeable nor uneasy, so it is suited to the climate, and
calculated both for their summers and winters. Every family makes their
own clothes; but all among them, women as well as men, learn one or
other of the trades formerly mentioned. Women, for the most part, deal
in wool and flax, which suit best with their weakness, leaving the
ruder trades to the men. The same trade generally passes down from
father to son, inclinations often following descent: but if any man’s
genius lies another way he is, by adoption, translated into a family
that deals in the trade to which he is inclined; and when that is to be
done, care is taken, not only by his father, but by the magistrate,
that he may be put to a discreet and good man: and if, after a person
has learned one trade, he desires to acquire another, that is also
allowed, and is managed in the same manner as the former. When he has
learned both, he follows that which he likes best, unless the public
has more occasion for the other.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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