188 cook's first voyage 17^9. 



under their arms, and accused us of great uncleanli- 

 ness for not doing the same. In their motions there 

 is at once vigour and ease ; their walk is graceful, 

 their deportment liberal, and their behaviour to 

 strangers and to each other affable and courteous. 

 In their dispositions, also, they seemed to be brave, 

 open, and candid, without either suspicion or treach- 

 ery, cruelty or revenge ; so that we placed the same 

 confidence in them as in our best friends, many of 

 us, particularly Mr. Banks, sleeping frequently in 

 their houses in the woods, without a companion, and 

 consequently wholly in their power. They were, 

 however, all thieves ; and when that is allowed, they 

 need not much fear a competition with the people of 

 any other nation upon earth. During our stay in 

 this island, we saw about fiwe or six persons, like one 

 that was met by Mr. Banks and Dr. Solander on the 

 24th of April, in their walk to the eastward, whose 

 skins were of a dead white, like the nose of a white 

 horse ; with white haii', beard, brows, and eye-lashes; 

 red, tender eyes; a short sight, and scurfy skins, 

 covered with a kind of white down ; but we found 

 that no two of these belonged to the same family, 

 and therefore concluded, that they were not a spe- 

 cies, but unhappy individuals, rendered anomalous 

 by disease. 



It is a custom in most countries where the inhabit- 

 ants have long hair, for the men to cut it short, and 

 the women to pride themselves in its length. Here, 

 however, the contrary custom prevails ; the women 

 always cut it short round their ears, and the men, ex- 

 cept the fishers, who are almost continually in the 

 water, suffer it to flow in large waves over their 

 shoulders, or tie it up in a bunch on the top of their 

 heads. 



They have a custom, also, of anointing their heads, 

 with what they call Monoe, an oil expressed from 

 the cocoa-nut, in which some sweet herbs or flowers 

 have been infused : as the oil is generally rancid, the 



