They fabricate a great many white mats, which are strong, with many red stripes, rhombuses, and other figures interwoven on one side; and often pretty large. These, probably, make a part of their dress occasionally; for they put them on their backs when they offered them for sale. But they make others coarser, plain and strong, which they spread over their floors to sleep upon.
They stain their gourd-shells prettily with undulated lines, triangles, and other figures of a black colour; instances of which we saw practised at New Zealand. And they seem to possess the art of varnishing; for some of these stained gourd-shells are covered with a kind of lacker; and, on other occasions, they use a strong size, or gluey substance, to fasten their things together. Their wooden dishes and bowls, out of which they drink their ava, are of the _etooa_-tree, or _cordia_, as neat, as if made in our turning-lathe, and perhaps better polished. And amongst their articles of handicraft, may be reckoned small square fans of mat or wicker-work, with handles tapering from them of the same or of wood, which are neatly wrought with small cords of hair, and fibres of the cocoa-nut core intermixed. The great variety of fishing-hooks are ingeniously made, some of bone, others of wood pointed with bone, and many of pearl shell. Of the last, some are like a sort that we saw at Tongataboo, and others simply curved, as the common sort at Otaheite, as well as the wooden ones. The bones are mostly small and composed of two pieces; and all the different sorts have a barb, either on the inside like ours, or on the outside opposite the same part; but others have both, the outer one being farthest from the point. Of this last sort, one was procured nine inches long, of a single piece of bone, which, doubtless, belonged to some large fish. The elegant form and polish of this could not, certainly, be outdone by any European artist, even if he should add all his knowledge in design, to the number and convenience of his tools. They polish their stones by constant friction, with pumice-stone in water; and such of their working instruments or tools as I saw, resembled those of the southern islands. Their hatchets, or rather adzes, were exactly of the same pattern, and either made of the same sort of blackish stone, or of a clay-coloured one. They have also little instruments made of a single shark’s tooth, some of which are fixed to the fore-part of a dog’s jaw-bone, and others to a thin wooden handle of the same shape, and at the other end there is a bit of string fastened through a small perforation. These serve as knives occasionally, and are, perhaps, used in carving.