and when they came out, even with this veil, we could perceive that their modesty suffered much pain by our prefence. The girdle and apron which they wear in common have been mentioned before. Both fexes bore their ears, and by ftretching them, the holes become large enough to admit a finger at leaft. In these holes they wear ornaments of various kinds, cloth, feathers, bones of large birds, and even fometimes a stick of wood; and to thefe receptacles of finery they generally applied the nails which we gave them, and every thing which it was poffible they could contain. The women fometimes thrust through them the down of the albatrofs, which is as white as fnow, and which, fpreading before and behind the hole in a bunch almost as big as the fift, makes a very fingular, and however strange it may be thought, not a disagreeable appearance. Befides the ornaments that are thrust thro' the holes of the ears, many others are fufpended to them by ftrings; such as chisels or bodkins made of green talc, upon which they fet a high value, the nails and teeth of their deceafed relations, the teeth of dogs, and every thing else that they can get, which they think either curious or valuable. The women alfo wear bracelets and anclets, made of the bones of birds, fhells, or any other substances which they can perforate and string upon a thread. The men had fometimes hanging to a ftring which went round the neck, a piece of green talc, or whalebone, fomewhat in the fhape of a tongue, with the rude figure of a man carved upon it; and upon this ornament they fet a high value. In one inftance, we faw the griftle that divides the noftrils, and called by anatomifts, the feptum nafi, perforated, and a feather thrust through the hole, which projected on each side over the cheeks: it is probable that this frightful fingularity was intended as an ornament, but of the many people we faw, we never observed it in any other, nor even a perforation that might occafionally ferve for fuch a purpose. 1770. March. Their houfes are the most inartificially made of any Houses. thing among them, being scarcely equal, except in size, to an English dog-kennel: they are feldom more than eighteen or twenty feet long, eight or ten broad, and S 2 five 1770. March. Furniture. five or fix high, from the pole that runs from one end to the other, and forms the ridge, to the ground: the framing is of wood, generally flender sticks, and both walls and roof confift of dry grafs and hay, which, it must be confeffed, is very tightly put together; and fome are alfo lined with the bark of trees, fo that in cold weather they must afford a very comfortable retreat. The roof is floping, like those of our barns, and the door is at one end, just high enough to admit a man, creeping upon his hands and knees: near the door is a fquare hole, which ferves the double office of window and chimney, for the fire-place is at the end, nearly in the middle between the two fides: in fome confpicuous part, and generally near the door, a plank is fixed, covered with carving after their manner: this they value as we do a picture, and in their estimation it is not an inferior ornament: the fide walls and roof project about two feet beyond the walls at each end, fo as to form a kind of porch, in which there are benches for the accommodation of the family. That part of the floor which is allotted for the fire-place, is inclosed in a hollow fquare, by partitions either of wood or stone, and in the middle of it the fire is kindled. The floor along the inside of the walls is thickly covered with ftraw, and upon this the family fleep. The furniture and implements confist of but few ar ticles, and one cheft commonly contains them all, except their provifion-baskets, the gourds that hold their fresh water, and the hammers that are used to beat their fern-root, which generally ftand without the door : fome rude tools, their clothes, arms, and a few feathers to ftick in their hair, make the rest of their treasure, Some of the better fort, whofe families are large, have three or four houfes inclosed within a court-yard, the walls of which are constructed of poles and hay, and are about ten or twelve feet high. When we were on fhore in the diftri& called Tolaga, we faw the ruins, or rather the frame of a house, for it had never been finifhed, much fuperior in fize to any that we faw elsewhere: it was thirty feet in length, about fifteen in breadth, and twelve high: the fides of it were adorned with many carved planks, of a workmanship manfhip much fuperior to any other that we had met with in the country; but for what purpose it was built, or why it was deferted, we could never learn. But these people, though in their houses they are fo well defended from the inclemency of the weather, feem to be quite indifferent whether they have any shelter at all during their excursions in search of fernroots and fish, fometimes fetting up a small shade to windward, and fometimes altogether neglecting even that precaution, fleeping with their women and children under bushes, with their weapons ranged round them, in the manner that has been already defcribed. The party confifting of forty or fifty, whom we faw at Mercury Bay, in a district which the natives call Opoorage, never erected the least shelter while we stayed there, though it fometimes rained inceffantly for fourand-twenty hours together. 1770. March. The articles of their food have been enumerated Food, already; the principal, which to them is what bread is to the inhabitants of Europe, is the roots of fern which grows upon the hills, and is nearly the fame with what grows upon our high commons in England, and is called indifferently fern, bracken, or brakes. The birds which fometimes ferve them for a feaft, are chiefly penguins and albatroffes, with a few other fpecies that have been occasionally mentioned in this narrative. Having no vessel in which water can be boiled, their Cookery. cookery confifts wholly of baking and roafting. They bake nearly in the fame manner as the inhabitants of the South Seas and to the account that has been already given of their roafting, nothing need be added, but that the long skewer, or fpit, to which the flesh is fastened, is placed floping towards the fire, by fetting one ftone against the bottom of it, and fupporting it near the middle with another, by the moving of which to a greater or lefs distance from the end, the degree of obliquity is increased or diminished at pleasure. To the northward, as I have obferved, there are plantations of yams, sweet potatoes, and cocoas, but we faw no fuch to the fouthward; the inhabitants therefore of that part of the country muft fubfift wholly upon March. 1770 fern-root and fish, except the fcanty and accidental refource which they may find in fea-fowl and dogs; and that fern and fish are not to be procured at all seasons of the year, even at the fea-fide, and upon the neighbouring hills, is manifeft from the stores of both that we faw laid up dry, and the reluctance which fome of them expreffed at felling any part of them to us when we offered to purchafe them, at leaft the fish, for feaftores: and this particular feems to confirm my opinion, that this country fearcely fuftains the prefent number of its inhabitants, who are urged to perpetual hoftilities by hunger, which naturally prompted them to eat the dead bodies of those who were flain in the contest. Water is their univerfal and only liquor, as far as we could discover; and if they have really no means of intoxication, they are, in this particular, happy beyond any other people that we have yet feen or heard of. As there is, perhaps, no fource of disease, either critical or chronic, but intemperance and inactivity, it cannot be thought strange that these people enjoy perfect and uninterrupted health. In all our visits to their towns, where young and old, men and women, crowded about us, prompted by the fame curiofity that carried us to look at them, we never faw a fingle perfon who appeared to have any bodily complaint; nor, among the numbers that we have seen naked, did we once perceive the flighteft eruption upon the skin, or any marks that an eruption had left behind. At first, indeed, obferving that fome of them, when they came off to us, were marked in patches with a white flowery appearance upon different parts of their bodies, we thought that they were leprous, or highly fcorbutic; but, upon examination, we found that these marks were owing to their having been wetted by the sprey of the fea in their paffage, which, when it was dried away, left the falts behind it in a fine white powder. Another proof of health, which we have mentioned upon a former occafion, is the facility with which the wounds healed that had left fcars behind them, and that we faw in a recent ftate; when we faw the man who had had been fhot with a musket-ball through the fleshy part of his arm, his wound feemed to be fo well digefted, and in fo fair a way of being perfectly healed, that if I had not known that no application had been made to it, I fhould certainly have inquired, with a very interefted curiofity, after the vulnery herbs and furgical art of the country. A farther proof that human nature is here untainted with disease, is the great number of old men that we faw, many of whom, by the lofs of their hair and teeth, appeared to be very ancient, yet none of them were decrepit; and though not equal to the young in muscular strength, were not a whit behind them in cheerfulness and vivacity. CHA P. X. Of the Canoes and Navigation of the Inhabitants of TH 1770. March. HE ingenuity of these people appears in nothing Canoes. more than in their canoes; they are long and narrow, and in shape very much refemble a New-England whale-boat; the larger fort feem to be built chiefly for war, and will carry from forty to eighty or an hundred armed men: we measured one which lay afhore at Tolaga, fhe was fixty-eight feet and an half long, five feet broad, and three feet and an half deep; the bottom was sharp, with straight fides like a wedge, and confifted of three lengths, hollowed out to about two inches, or an inch and an half thick, and well faftened together with ftrong plaiting; each fide confifted of one entire plank, fixty-three feet long, ten or twelve inches broad, and about an inch and quarter thick, and these were fitted and lashed to the bottom part with great dexterity and strength. A confiderable number of thwarts were laid from gunwale to gunwale, to which they were fecurely lashed on each fide, as a strengthening to the boat. The ornament at the head projected five |