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their early commerce with men, the only thing in, which they differ from their superiors, that could possibly affect their growth.

Their natural complexion is that kind of clear olive, or brunette, which many people in Europe prefer to the finest white and red. In those that are exposed to the wind and sun, it is considerably deepened, but in others that live under shelter, especially the superior class of women, it continues of its native hue, and the skin is most delicately smooth and soft; they have no tint in their cheeks, which we distinguish by the name of colour. The shape of the face is comely, the cheek-bones are not high, neither are the eyes hollow, nor the brow prominent: The only feature that does not correspond with our ideas of beauty is the nose, which, in general, is somewhat flat; but their eyes, especially those of the women, are full of expression, sometimes sparkling with fire, and sometimes melting with softness; their teeth also are, almost without exception, most beautifully even and white, and their breath perfectly without taint.3

The hair is almost universally black, and rather coarse; the men have beards, which they wear in many fashions, always,

3 The missionary account speaks less favourably of the comeliness of these islanders. But this being a matter of taste, will of course be very variously considered. The reader may amuse himself by comparing the following quotation with the text, and forming his own opinion. He will at all events readily admit, that nature has done more for these people than art, and that the predominance of fashion is amongst them, as it is sometimes elsewhere, accomplished at the expence of beauty. "The natural colour of the inhabitants is olive, inclining to copper. Some are very dark, as the fishermen, who are most exposed to the sun and sea; but the women, who carefully clothe themselves, and avoid the sun-beams, are but a shade or two darker than a European brunette. Their eyes are black and sparkling; their teeth white and even; their skin soft and delicate; their limbs finely turned; their hair jetty, perfumed and ornamented with flowers; but we did not think their features beautiful, as by continual pressure from infancy, which they call tourooma, they widen the face with their hands, distend their mouth, and flatten the nose and forehead, which gives them a too masculine look; and they are in general large, and wide over the shoulders; we were therefore disappointed in the judgment we had formed from the report of preceding visitors; and though here and there was to be seen a living person who might be esteemed comely, we saw few who in fact could be called beauties; yet they possess eminent feminine graces: Their faces are never darkened with a scowl, or covered with a cloud of sullenness or suspicion." This account fully concurs in what fol lows as to the manners and behaviour of the Otaheitans.-E.

always, however, plucking out great part of them, and keeping the rest perfectly clean and neat. Both sexes also eradicate every hair from under their arms, and accused us of great uncleanness for not doing the same. In their motions there is at once vigour and ease; their walk is graceful, their deportment liberal, and their behaviour to strangers and to each other affable and courteous. In their dispositions also, they seemed to be brave, open, and candid, without either suspicion or treachery, cruelty, or revenge; so that we placed the same confidence in them as in our best friends, many of us, particularly Mr Banks, sleeping frequently in their houses in the woods, without a companion, and consequently 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 stay in this island we saw about five or six persons like one that was met by Mr Banks and Dr Solander on the 24th of April, in their walk to the eastward, whose skins were of a dead white, like the nose of a white horse; with white hair, beard, brows, and eyelashes; red, tender eyes; a short sight, and scurfy skins, covered with a kind of white down; but we found that no two of these belonged to the same family, and therefore concluded, that they were not a species, but unhappy individuals, rendered anomalous by disease.*

It is a custom in most countries where the inhabitants have long hair, for the men to cut it short, and the women to pride themselves in its length. Here, however, the contrary custom prevails; the women always cut it short round their ears, and the men, except the fishers, who are almost continually in the water, suffer it to flow in large waves over their shoulders, or tie it up in a bunch on the top of their heads.

They have a custom also of anointing their heads with what they call monoe, an oil expressed from the cocoa-nut, in which some sweet herbs or flowers have been infused:

As

In the opinion here expressed the Editor has already acquiesced, He would remark by the bye, that although two or more persons had been of the same family, no sufficient argument could have been adduced, as to the peculiar affection depending on circumstances adequate to constitute a species; for it is very clear that hereditary diseases do not necessarily im ply essential distinctions, and there seems no reason to alter the laws of logic in favour of the Albinos.-E.

As the oil is generally rancid, the smell is at first very disagreeable to a European; and as they live in a hot conntry, and have no such thing as a comb, they are not able to keep their heads free from lice, which the children and common people sometimes pick out and eat; a hateful cus tom, wholly different from their manners in every other particular; for they are delicate and cleanly almost without example, and those to whom we distributed combs, soon delivered themselves from vermin, with a diligence which showed that they were not more odious to us than to them.5

They have a custom of staining their bodies, nearly in the same manner as is practised in many other parts of the world, which they call tattowing. They prick the skin, so as just not to fetch blood, with a small instrument, something in the form of a hoe; that part which answers to the blade is made of a bone or shell, scraped very thin, and is from a quarter of an inch to an inch and a half wide; the edge is cut into sharp teeth or points, from the number of three to twenty, according to its size: When this is to be used, they dip the teeth into a mixture of a kind of lamp-black, formed of the smoke that rises from an oily nut which they burn instead of candles, and water; the teeth, thus prepared, are placed upon the skin, and the handle to which they are fas tened

5 This remark is scarcely consistent with what is related in the missionary account, by which it appears that these vermin are considered by the Otaheitans much in the same light as certain animals were once in our own land, viz. royal property. The passage is too curious to be omitted. It displays a very remarkable instance of that ease and elegance, with which crowned heads can occasionally employ themselves for the good of their subjects. "The mode of carrying the king and queen is with their legs hanging down before, seated on the shoulders and leaning on the head of their carriers, and very frequently amusing themselves with picking out the vermin which there abound. It is the singular privilege of the queen, that of all women, she alone may eat them; which privilege she never fails to make use of." Such hunting excursions are surely much more commendable, because much more innocent in their own nature and more beneficial in their results, than those practised amongst ourselves, at the risque of neck and limbs, and to the still more important detriment of the farmer's gates and fences. The point of privilege, perhaps, is less capable of defenceadmitting, however, for a monent, that pre-eminence of station and office entitles the holder to singularity of inclination and conduct, as it is certainly allowed to do in the case of some other sovereigns, the question then becomes a mere matter of taste, and it is ungenerous to deny the Otaheitan queen the benefit of the old maxim, de gustibus non est disputan dum.-E.

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tened being struck, by quick smart blows, with a stick fitted to the purpose, they pierce it, and at the same time carry into the puncture the black composition, which leaves an indelible stain. The operation is painful, and it is some days before the wounds are healed. It is performed upon the youth of both sexes when they are about twelve or fourteen years of age, on several parts of the body, and in various figures, according to the fancy of the parent, or perhaps the rank of the party. The women are generally marked with this stain, in the form of a Z, on every joint of their fingers and toes, and frequently round the outside of their feet: The men are also marked with the same figure, and both men and women have squares, circles, cres cents, and ill-designed representations of men, birds, or dogs, and various other devices impressed upon their legs and arms, some of which we were told had significations, though we could never learn what they were. But the part on which these ornaments are lavished with the greatest profusion, is the breech: This, in both sexes, is covered with a deep black; above which, arches are drawn one over another as high as the short ribs. They are often a quarter of an inch broad, and the edges are not straight lines, but indented. These arches are their pride, and are shewn both by men and women with a mixture of ostentation and pleasure; whether as an ornament, or a proof of their fortitude and resolution in bearing pain, we could not determine. The face in general is left unmarked; for we saw but one instance to the contrary. Some old men had the greatest part of their bodies covered with large patches of black, deeply indented at the edges, like a rude imitation of flame; but we were told, that they came from a low island, called Noouoora, and were not natives of Otaheite.

Mr Banks saw the operation of tattowing performed upon the backside of a girl about thirteen years old. The instrument used upon this occasion had thirty teeth, and every stroke, of which at least a hundred were made in a minute, drew an ichor or serum a little tinged with blood. The girl bore it with most Stoical resolution for about a quarter of an hour; but the pain of so many hundred punctures as she had received in that time then became intolerable: She first complained in murmurs, then wept, and at last burst into loud lamentations, earnestly imploring the operator to desist. He was, however, inexorable;

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and when she began to struggle, she was held down by 'two women, who sometimes soothed and sometimes chid her, and now and then, when she was most unruly, gave her a smart blow. Mr Banks staid in a neighbouring house au hour, and the operation was not over when he went away; yet it was performed but upon one side, the other having been done some time before; and the arches upon the loins, in which they most pride themselves, and which give more pain than all the rest, were still to be done.

It is strange that these people should value themselves upon what is no distinction; for I never saw a native of this island, either man or woman, in a state of maturity, in whom these marks were wanting: Possibly they may have their rise in superstition, especially as they produce no visible advantage, and are not made without great pain; but though we enquired of many hundreds, we could never get any account of the matter."

Their

"It is very remarkable that something like this tattowing was practised among the Thracians of old, and was actually considered as an indication of nobility. So says Herodotus in Terps. 6. The notion is no way irrational, that early and semi-civilized people had no other way of distinguishing ranks, than by making visible differences on the skin. The ori ginal inhabitants of Britain, it is probable, meant the same thing by their use of colouring substances. Though it is probable enough too, that another purpose was also accomplished thereby, viz, preservation in some degree from the inclemency of the climate. By some authors, it has been imagined, that such painting rendered them more terrible to their enemies, which was the reason for the practice. The Indians of North Carolina, according to the curious account of them by Surveyor-General Lawson, Lond. 1714, had still another reason for something similar. Speaking of their use of varnish, pipe-clay, lamp-black, &c. &c. for colouring their bodies before going out to war, he says, "When these creatures are thus painted, they make the most frightful figures that can be imitated by man, and seem more like devils than human creatures. You may be sure that they are about some mischief when you see them thus painted; for in all the hostilities which have ever been acted against the English at any time, in several of the plantations of America, the savages always appeared in this disguise, whereby they might never after be discovered, or known by any of the Christians that should happen to see them after they had made their escape; for it is impossible even to know an Indian under these colours, although he has been at your house a thousand times, and you know him at other times as well as you do any person living."-Mr Bryan Edwards mentions something of the Charaibes like this. "Not satisfied with the workmanship of nature, they called in the assistance of art, to make themselves more formidable. They painted their faces and bodies with arnotto so extravagantly, that their natural complexion, which was really that of a Spanish olive, was not easily to be distinguished

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