490 COMPENDIUM OF GEOGRAPHY AND TRAVEL 



man in the ship, was but 14 inches." And again — 

 " The manly beauty of the young men is very remark- 

 able ; one in particular, who had decked his hair with 

 the flowers of the scarlet hibiscus, might have sat for an 

 Antinous. Their features are often beautiful, although 

 the nose is somewhat flatter than with us ; but this, I 

 believe, is done by the mothers in the children's early 

 youth as an improvement to their appearance." This 

 practice broadens, and to our eye disfigures, the nose, 

 which is naturally rather long and somewhat arched, as 

 shown by portraits, and can hardly differ in its normal 

 state from that of good-looking Europeans. The hair is 

 dark-brown or black, smooth and curly, totally unlike 

 either the frizzled mop of the Papuan or the perfectly 

 straight black hair of the true Malay. They have httle 

 beard generally, though sometimes it grows pretty freely. 

 Their average stature is fully equal to that of Europeans. 

 The form of their heads is broad, high, and flattened at 

 the back ; the latter feature may, however, be artificial. 

 In character they are cheerful and joyous, fond of dancing 

 and song, and a variety of amusements. Although cere- 

 monious and stately in many of their customs, gloom and 

 moroseness are contrary to their nature. They are very 

 cleanly in all their habits, and have a taste for neatness 

 and order such as never exists elsewhere among people in 

 a barbarous state. Though without written language, 

 they have an abundance of songs and traditions, handed 

 down from one generation to another, as among the 

 ancient bards of our own country. 



Although entirely without metals, their native manu- 

 factures are very beautiful. They make mats of extreme 

 delicacy, and bark cloth, beaten out to the thinness of 

 fine paper, joined together in rolls sometimes hundreds 

 of yards long, and ornamented with graceful patterns in 



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