i769- fire, and fometimes melting with foftnefs; their teeth alfo
are, almoft without exception, moft beautifully even and
white, and their breath perfectly without taint.
The hair is almoft univerfally black, and rather coarfe ;
the men have beards which they wear in many fafhions,
always, however, plucking out great part of them, and keeping
the reft perfectly clean and neat. Both fexes alfo eradicate
every hair from under their arms, and accufed us of
great uncleanlinefs for not doing the fame. In their motions
there is at once vigour and eafe; their walk is graceful,
their deportment liberal, and their behaviour to ftrangers
and to each other affable and courteous. In their difpofitions
alfo, they feemed to be brave, open, and candid, without
either fufpicion or treachery, cruelty or revenge ; fo that we
placed the fame confidence in them as in our beft friends,
many of us, particularly Mr. Banks, ileeping frequently in
their houfes in the woods, without a companion, and confe-
quently wholly in their power. They were, however, all
thieves ; and when that is allowed, they need not much fear
a competition with the people of any other nation upon
earth. During our ftay in this ifland we faw about five or fix
pexfons, like one that was met by Mr. Banks and Dr. Solan-
der on the 24th of April, in their walk to the eaftward, whofe
ikins were of a dead white, like the nofe of a white horfe ;
with white hair, beard, brows, and eye-lafhes ; red, tender
eyes ; a^hort fight, and fcurfy ikins, covered with a kind of
white down; but we found that no two of thefe belonged to
the fame family, and therefore concluded, that they were
not a fpecies, but unhappy individuals, rendered anomalous
by difeafe.
Dief». . It is a cuftom in moft countries where the inhabitants have
long hair, for the men to cut it fhort and the women to pride
themthemfelves
in its length. Here, however, the contrary cuf- , ^69- _
tom prevails; the women always cut it fhort round their
ears, and the men, except the fiihers, who are almoft continually
in the water, fuffer it to flow in large waves over
their fhoulders, or tie it up in a bunch on the top of their
heads.
They have a cuftom alfo of anointing their heads, with
what they call Monoe, an oil exprefled from the cocoa-nut, in
which fome fweet herbs or flowers have been infufed: as the
oil is generally rancid, the fmell is at firft very difagreeable
to a European ; and as they live in a hot country, and have
no fuch thing as a comb, they are not able to keep their heads
free from lice, which the children and common people fometimes
pick out and eat: a hateful cuftom, wholly different
from their manners in every other particular; for they are
delicate and cleanly almoft without example, and thofe to
whom we diftributed combs, Toon delivered themfelves from
vermin, with a diligence which fhowed that they were not
more odious to us than to them.
They have a cuftom of ftaining their bodies, nearly in the
fame manner as is praciifcd in many other parts of the
world, which they call Tattowing. They prick the fkin, fo as
juft not to fetch blood, with a fmall inftrument, fomething
in the form of a hoe; that part which anfwers to the blade
is made of a bone or fhell, fcraped very thin, and is from a
quarter of an inch to an inch and a half wide; the edge is
cut into fharp teeth or points, from the number of three to
twenty, according to its fize: when this is to be ufed, they
dip the teeth into a mixture of a kind of lamp-black, formed
of the fmoke that rifes from an oily nut which they burn
inftead of candles, and water; the teeth, thus prepared, are
placed upon the fkin, and the handle to which they are raf-
B b 2 tened