177^. ROUND THE WORLD. 43 



elegance, which, considering they have no needle, is 

 surprising : but the great pride of their dress consists 

 in the fur of their dogs, which they use with such 

 economy, that they cut it into stripes, and sew them 

 upon their cloth at a distance from each other, which 

 is a strong proof that dogs are not plenty among 

 them ; these stripes are also of different colours, and 

 disposed so as to produce a pleasing effect. We saw 

 some dresses that were adorned with feathers instead 

 of fur, but these were not common ; and we saw 

 one that was entirely covered with the red feathers 

 of the parrot. 



The dress of the man who was killed when we first 

 went ashore in Poverty Bay has been described al- 

 ready ; but we saw the same dress only once more 

 during our stay upon the coast, and that was in 

 Queen Charlotte's Sound. 



The women, contrary to the custom of the sex in 

 general, seemed to affect dress rather less than the 

 men : their hair, which, as I have observed before, is 

 generally cropt short, is never tied upon the top of 

 the head when it is suffered to be long, nor is it ever 

 adorned with feathers. Their garments were made 

 of the same materials, and in the same form, as those 

 of the other sex, but the lower one was always bound 

 fast round them, except when they went into the 

 water to catch lobsters, and then they took great care 

 not to be seen by the men. Some of us happening 

 one day to land upon a small island in Tolaga Bay, we 

 surprised several of them at this employment ; and 

 the chaste Diana, with her nymphs, could not have 

 discovered more confusion and distress at the sight 

 of Actaeon than these women expressed upon our 

 approach. Some of them hid themselves among the 

 rocks, and the rest crouched down in the sea till they 

 had made themselves a girdle and apron of such 

 weeds as they could find, and when they came out, 

 even with this veil, we could perceive that their 

 modesty suffered much pain by our presence. The 



