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sed in the form of a star: Its flavour is a light, clean, pleasant acid, but it cannot be eaten raw; it is said to be excellent as a pickle; and stewed, it made a most agreeable sour sauce to our boiled dishes.

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The tame animals are buffaloes, sheep, goats, hogs, fowls, pigeons, horses, asses, dogs, and cats; and of all these there is great plenty. The buffaloes differ very considerably from the horned cattle of Europe in several particulars; their ears are much larger, their skins are almost without hair, their horns are curved towards each other, but together bend directly backwards, and they have no dewlaps. We saw several that were as big as a well-grown European ox, and there must be some much larger; for Mr Banks saw a pair of horns which measured, from tip to tip, three feet nine inches and a half, across their widest diameter, four feet one inch and a half, and in the whole sweep of their semicircle in front, seven feet six inches and a half. It must, however, be observed, that a buffalo here of any given size, does not weigh above half as much as an ox of the same size in England : Those that we guessed to weigh four hundred weight, did not weigh more than two hundred and fifty; the reason is, that so late in the dry season the bones are very thinly covered with flesh: There is not an ounce of fat in a whole carcase, and the flanks are literally nothing but skin and bone: The flesh, however, is well tasted and juicy, and I suppose better than the flesh of an English ox would be if he was to starve in this sun-burnt country.

The horses are from eleven to twelve hands high, but though they are small, they are spirited and nimble, especially in pacing, which is their common step: The inhabitants generally ride them without a saddle, and with no better bridle than a halter. The sheep are of the kind which in England are called Bengal sheep, and differ from ours in many particulars. They are covered with hair instead of wool; their ears are very large, and hang down under their horns, and their noses are arched; they are thought to have a general resemblance to a goat, goat, and for that reason are frequently called cabritos: Their flesh we thought the worst mutton we had ever eaten, being as lean as that of the buffaloes, and without flavour. The hogs, however, were some of the fattest we had ever seen, though, as we were told, their principal food is the outside husks of rice, and a palm syrup syrup dissolved in water. The fowls are chiefly of the game breed, and large, but the eggs are remarkably small.

Of the fish which the sea produces here, we know but little: Turtles are sometimes found upon the coast, and are by these people, as well as all others, considered as a dainty.

The people are rather under than over the middling size; the women especially are remarkably short and squat built: Their complexion is a dark brown, and their hair universally black and lank. We saw no difference in the colour of rich and poor, though in the South-Sea islands those that were exposed to the weather were almost as brown as the New Hollanders, and the better sort nearly as fair as the natives of Europe. The men are in general well-made, vigorous, and active, and have a greater variety in the make and disposition of their features than usual: The countenances of the women, on the contrary, are all alike.

The men fasten their hair up to the top of their heads with a comb, the women tie it behind in a club, which is very far from becoming. Both sexes eradicate the hair from under the arm, and the men do the same by their beards, for which purpose, the better sort always carry a pair of silver pincers hanging by a string round their necks; some, however, suffer a very little hair to remain upon their upper-lips, but this is always kept short.

The dress of both sexes consists of cotton cloth, which being dyed blue in the yarn, and not uniformly of the same shade, is in clouds or waves of that colour, and even in our eye had not an inelegant appearance. This cloth they manufacture themselves, and two pieces, each about two yards long, and a yard and a half wide, make a dress: One of them is worn round the middle, and the other covers the upper part of the body: The lower edge of the piece that goes round the middle, the men draw pretty tight just below the fork, the upper edge of it is left loose, so as to form a kind of hollow belt, which serves them as a pocket to carry their knives, and other little implements which it is convenient to have about them. The other piece of cloth is passed through this girdle behind, and one end of it being brought over the left shoulder, and the other over the right,

2 The reader will please remember this evidence of the nutritious quality of the palm-syrup. He will find it useful very shortly, when the value of sugar as an article of diet is mentioned.-E

right, they fall down over the breast, and are tucked into the girdle before, so that by opening or closing the plaits, they can cover more or less of their bodies as they please; the arms, legs, and feet are always naked. The difference between the dress of the two sexes consists principally in the manner of wearing the waist-piece; for the women, instead of drawing the lower edge tight, and leaving the upper edge loose for a pocket, draw the upper edge tight, and let the lower edge fall as low as the knees, so as to form a petticoat; the body-piece, instead of being passed through the girdle, is fastened under the arms, and cross the breast with the utmost decency. I have already observed that the men fastened the hair upon the top of the head, and the women tie it in a club behind, but there is another differ ence in the head-dress, by which the sexes are distinguished: The women wear nothing as a succedaneum for a cap, but the men constantly wrap something round their heads in the manner of a fillet; it is small, but generally of the finest materials that can be procured: We saw some who applied silk handkerchiefs to this purpose, and others that wore fine cotton, or muslin, in the manner of a small turban.

These people bore their testimony that the love of finery is a universal passion, for their ornaments were very numerous. Some of the better sort wore chains of gold round their necks, but they were made of plaited wire, and consequently were light and of little value; others had rings, which were so much worn that they seemed to have descended through many generations; and one person had a silver-headed cane, marked with a kind of cypher, consisting of the Roman letters, V, O, C, and therefore probably a present from the Dutch East India Company, whose mark it is: They have also ornaments made of beads, which some wear round their necks as a solitaire, and others as bracelets, upon their wrists: These are common to both sexes, but the women have, besides, strings or girdles of beads, which they wear round their waists, and which serve to keep up their petticoat. Both sexes had their ears bored, nor was there a single exception that fell under our notice, yet we never saw an ornament in any of them; we never, indeed, saw either man or woman in any thing but what appeared to be their ordinary dress, except the king and his minister, who in general wore a kind of night-gown

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of coarse chintz, and one of whom once received us in a black robe, which appeared to be made of what is called prince's stuff. We saw some boys, about twelve or fourteen years old, who had spiral circles of thick brass-wire passed three or four times round their arms, above the elbow, and some men wore rings of ivory, two inches in breadth, and above an inch in thickness, upon the same part of the arm; these, we were told, were the sons of the rajas, or chiefs, who wore those cumbrous ornaments as badges of their high birth.

Almost all the men had their names traced upon their arms, in indelible characters of a black colour, and the wo men had a square ornament of flourished lines, impressed in the same manner, just under the bend of the elbow. We were struck with the similitude between these marks and those made by tattowing in the South-Sea islands, and upon enquiring into its origin, we learnt that it had been practised by the natives long before any Europeans came among them, and that in the neighbouring islands the inhabitants were marked with circles upon their necks and breasts. The universality of this practice, which prevails among savages in all parts of the world, from the remotest limits of North America, to the islands in the South-Seas, and which probably differs but little from the method of staining the body that was in use among the ancient inhabitants of Britain, is a curious subject of speculation.3

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3 In the account which Mr Bossu has given of some Indians who inhabit the banks of the Akanza, a river of North America, which rises in New Mexico, and falls into the Mississippi, he relates the following incident: "The Akanzas," says he, " have adopted me, and as a mark of my privilege, have imprinted the figure of a roebuck upon my thigh, which was done in this manner: An Indian having burnt some straw, diluted the ashes with water, and with this mixture drew the figure upon my skin; he then retraced it, by pricking the lines with needles, so as at every puncture just to draw the blood, and the blood mixing with the ashes of the straw, forms a figure which can never be effaced." See Travels through Louisiana, vol. i, p. 107.

So far this note is by Dr Hawkesworth. Some observations on the practice of staining or tattowing the body, have been offered in another part of this work. It may be worth while to add here the account which Krustenstern has given of the mode adopted in Nukahiwa, one of the Washington Islands: "As soon as a Nukahiewer arrives at the age of puberty, his whole body is tatooed; an art carried to a much greater perfection in this island than in any other, as they paint, in fact, their bodies with different figures, rubbing a pleasing colour into the skin, which is first scratched The houses of Savu are all built upon the same plan, and differ only in size, being large in proportion to the rank and riches of the proprietor. Some are four hundred feet long, and some are not more than twenty: They are all raised upon posts, or piles, about four feet high, one end of which is driven into the ground, and upon the other end is laid a substantial foor of wood, so that there is a vacant space of four feet between the floor of the house and the ground. Upon this floor are placed other posts or pillars, that support

scratched until it bleeds. Black is the colour generally used for this purpose, which, after some time, takes a bluish tinge. The king, his father, and the high-priest, were the only persons who were coloured quite black, nor was any part of their bodies left unadorned; the face, eye-lids, and even a part of their heads, from which the hair had been shaved, being tatooed. Neither in the Society nor the Friendly Islands is this customary. In the latter, the king alone is not tatooed; and it is only in New Zealand, and the Sandwich Islands, as Captain King relates, where the face is tatooed. The New Zealander and the Nukahiwer have a similar mode of performing this operation; for instance, they not only mark the body with single upright figures, or animals, as in the Sandwich Islands, but represent upon it, in the most perfect symmetry, connected ornaments in concentric rings and knots, which added greatly to the beauty of its appearance. The women only tatoo their hands and arms, the ends of their ears, and their lips. The lower classes are less tatooed, and many of them not at all; and it is therefore not improbable that this ornament serves to point out a noble, or, at any rate, a distinguished personage. There are some among them who have particularly acquired this art; one of whom took up his residence on board the ship, where he found sufficient employment, as almost all the sailors underwent the operation." Figures of animals are favourite decorations for the skin with some people. Hutchinson, in his History of Massachusets Bay, second edition, tells of the natives," Upon their cheeks, and in many parts of their bodies, some of them, by incisions, into which they convey a black unchangeable ink, make the figures of bears, deer, moose, wolves, eagles, hawks, &c., which were' indelible, and generally lasted as long as they lived." Not content with their own art of embellishment, however, he says, in a note, "Since they have been furnished with paints from Europe, they daub their faces with vermilion, and sometimes with blue, green, and other colours." Colden observes of the five nations of Canada, that their faces were always painted in a frightful manner when they went out to war, "to make themselves terrible to their enemies." Neal, speaking of the New Englanders, says, -"They grease their bodies and hair very often, and paint themselves all over; their faces and shoulders with a deep red, and their bodies with a variety of ugly mishapen figures; and he is the bravest fellow that has the most frightful forms drawn upon him, and looks most terrible." Again, describing their diversions, "If the dancers or actors are to shew warlike postures, then they come in painted for war, some with their faces red, and some black; some black and red, with streaks of white under their eyes, as they imagine will appear most terrible." Captain Carver gives a similar account of the tribes he saw. - Е.

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