gf)2 cook's second voyage march, 



inches in length. They sometimes turn this slit 

 over the upper part, and then the ear looks as if the 

 flap was cut off. The chief ear ornaments are the 

 white down of feathers, and rings, which they wear 

 in the inside of the hole, made of some elastic sub- 

 stance, rolled up like a watch-spring. I judged this 

 was to keep the hole at its utmost extension. I do 

 not remember seeing them wear any other ornaments, 

 excepting amulets made of bone or shells. 



As harmless and friendly as these people seem 

 to be, they are not without offensive weapons, such 

 as short wooden clubs and spears ; which latter are 

 crooked sticks about six feet long, armed at one end 

 with pieces of flint. They have also a weapon made 

 of wood, like the Patoo patoo of New Zealand. 



Their houses are low miserable huts, constructed 

 by setting sticks upright in the ground, at six or 

 eight feet distance, then bending them towards each 

 other, and tying them together at the top, forming 

 thereby a kind of Gothic arch. The longest sticks 

 are placed in the middle, and shorter ones each way, 

 and at less distance asunder ; by which means the 

 building is highest and broadest in the middle, and 

 lower and narrower towards each end. To these are 

 tied others horizontally, and the whole js thatched 

 over with leaves of sugar-cane. The door-way is in 

 the middle of one side, formed like a porch, and so 

 low and narrow as just to admit a man to enter upon 

 all fours. The largest house I saw was about sixty 

 feet long, eight or nine feet high in the middle, and 

 three or four at each end ; its breadth at these parts 

 was nearly equal to its height. Some have a kind of 

 vaulted houses built with stone, and partly under 

 ground ; but I never w x as in one of these. 



I saw no household utensils amongst them except 

 gourds, and of these but very few. They were ex- 

 travagantly fond of cocoa-nut shells ; more so than 

 of any thing we could give them. They dress their 

 victuals in the same manner as at Otaheite ; that is, 



10 



