177S. THE PACIFIC OCEAN. 213 



least, upon the beach ; when it could not be supposed 

 that above a tenth part of the inhabitants were present. 



The common dress, both of the women and of the 

 men, has been already described. The first have 

 often much larger pieces of cloth wrapped round 

 them, reaching from just below the breasts to the 

 hams, or lower ; and several were seen with pieces 

 thrown loosely about the shoulders, which covered 

 the greatest part of the body ; but the children, when 

 very young, are quite naked. They wear nothing 

 upon the head ; but the hair, in both sexes, is cut in 

 different forms ; and the general fashion, especially 

 among the women, is to have it long before and short 

 behind. The men often had it cut, or shaved, on 

 each side, in such a manner that the remaining part, 

 in some measure, resembles the crest of their caps 

 or helmets, formerly described. Both sexes, how- 

 ever, seem very careless about their hair, and have 

 nothing like combs to dress it with. Instances of 

 wearing it, in a singular manner, were sometimes 

 met with among the men, who twist it into a number 

 of separate parcels, like the tails of a wig, each about 

 the thickness of a finger; though the greatest part of 

 these, which are so long that they reach far down 

 the back, we observed, were artificially fixed upon 

 the head, over their own hair.* 



It is remarkable that, contrary to the general prac- 

 tice of the islands we had hitherto discovered in the 

 Pacific Ocean, the people of the Sandwich Islands 

 have not their ears perforated, nor have they the least 

 idea of wearing ornaments in them. Both sexes, 

 nevertheless, adorn themselves with necklaces made 

 of bunches of small black cord, like our hat-string, 

 often above a hundred-fold, exactly like those of 

 Wateeoo ; only that instead of the two little balls, 

 on the middle before, they fix a small bit of wood, 



* The print of Horn Island, which we meet with in Mr. Dal- 

 rymple's account of Le Maire and Schouten's voyages, represents 

 some of the natives of that island with such long tails, hanging 

 from their heads as are here described. See Dalrymples Voyages 

 to the South Pacific, vol. ii. p. 58. 



r 3 



