 by the
operation. This is repeated again and again, until the desired result is
obtained.
    When the substance is in a proper state for the next process, it betrays
evidences of incipient decomposition; the fibres are relaxed and softened, and
rendered perfectly malleable. The different strips are now extended, one by one,
in successive layers, upon some smooth surface - generally the prostrate trunk
of a cocoa-nut tree - and the heap thus formed is subjected, at every new
increase, to a moderate beating, with a sort of wooden mallet, leisurely
applied. The mallet is made of a hard heavy wood resembling ebony, is about
twelve inches in length, and perhaps two in breadth, with a rounded handle at
one end, and in shape is the exact counterpart of one of our four-sided
razor-strops. The flat surfaces of the implement are marked with shallow
parallel indentations, varying in depth on the different sides, so as to be
adapted to the several stages of the operation. These marks produce the corduroy
sort of stripes discernible in the tappa in its finished state. After being
beaten in the manner I have described, the material soon becomes blended in one
mass, which, moistened occasionally with water, is at intervals hammered out, by
a kind of gold-beating process, to any degree of thinness required. In this way
the cloth is easily made to vary in strength and thickness, so as to suit the
numerous purposes to which it is applied.
    When the operation last described has been concluded, the new-made tappa is
spread out on the grass to bleach and dry, and soon becomes of a dazzling
whiteness. Sometimes, in the first stages of the manufacture, the substance is
impregnated with a vegetable juice, which gives it a permanent colour. A rich
brown and a bright yellow are occasionally seen, but the simple taste of the
Typee people inclines them to prefer the natural tint.
    The notable wife of Tammahammaha, the renowned conqueror and king of the
Sandwich Islands, used to pride herself in the skill she displayed in dyeing her
tappa with contrasting colours disposed in regular figures; and, in the midst of
the innovations of the times, was regarded, toward the decline of her life, as a
lady of the old school, clinging as she did to the national cloth, in preference
to the frippery of the European calicoes. But the art of printing the tappa is
unknown upon the Marquesan Islands.
    In passing along the valley, I was often attracted by the noise of the
mallet, which, when employed in the manufacture of the cloth
