392 Professor Flower [May 7, 



necessary to render them fit for the purpose. When Captain Cook, 

 exactly one hundred years ago, was describing the naked savages of the 

 east coast of Australia,* he says : — " Their principal ornament is the 

 bone which they thrust through the cartilage which divides the nostrils 

 from each other. What perversion of taste could make them think 

 this a decoration, or what could prompt them, before they had worn it 

 or seen it worn, to suffer the pain and inconvenience that must of 

 necessity attend it, is perhaps beyond the power of human sagacity to 

 determine. As this bone is as thick as a man's finger, and between 



Fig. 1. 



Australian Native, with bone nose-ornament. 



five and six inches long, it reaches quite across the face, and so 

 effectually stops up both the nostrils that they are forced to keep their 

 mouths wide open for breath, and snufiie so when they attempt to speak 

 that they are scarcely intelligible even to each other. Our seamen, 

 with some humour, called it their spritsail-yard ; and indeed it had. so 

 ludicrous an appearance, that till we were used to it we found it difficult 

 to refrain from laughter." 



Eight years later, on his visit to the north-west coast of America, 

 Captain Cook found precisely the same custom prevailing among the 

 natives of Prince William's Sound, whose mode of life was in most 

 other respects quite dissimilar to that of the Australians, and who 

 belong etlinologically to a totally different branch of the human race. 



In 1681, Dampierf thus describes a custom which he found exist- 



* • First Voyage,' vol. ii. p. 633. 



t • Voyage Round the World,' ed. 1717, vol. i. p. 32. 



