282 THE TROPICAL WORLD. 



they prepared an intoxicating beverage called Kava from the 

 root of a species of pepper. 



Both men and women were dressed in Tapa, a kind of white 

 cloth, which was not woven, but made like paper, of the 

 macerated fibres of the bark of the Chinese mulberry and 

 bread-fruit trees spread out and beaten together. The lower 

 classes wore but a scanty covering of this material, while the 

 nobles were amply attired in long and flowing garments, 

 stained with various colours. 



When even the rude Australian shows some desire to decorate 

 his ugly person by sticking a bone through his nostrils, or by 

 bedaubing his filthy body with paint, we cannot wonder at the 

 taste for ornament displayed by the more polished South Sea 

 Islanders. Elegant chaplets, of gaily-coloured feathers, adorned 

 their raven hair, and flowers in the ears gratified at once the 

 eye by their lively hues, and the smell by their delicious 

 perfume. 



The custom of tattooing so frequent among the Malays, and 

 even among the Negroes and American Indians, was nowhere so 

 universally and so elaborately practised as among the South 

 Sea islanders. Each group had its particular patterns, each 

 rank was differently marked. The instrument used for this 

 painful operation was a kind of comb, the teeth of which were 

 struck just through the skin, after which the punctures were 

 rubbed with a kind of paste made of soot and oil which left an 

 indelible stain. 



The industrial dexterity of this ingenious people appeared 

 in the manufacture of many other articles besides the Tapa. 

 Kushes, grass, the bark of trees, and fibrous leaves furnished the 

 material for finer mats than any made in Europe. The 

 coarser kind of matting was employed for sleeping on in the 

 night, or sitting on through the day; the finer sort was 

 converted into garments in rainy weather, the Tapa being- 

 soon penetrated by wet. They were also very expert in 

 making basket and wicker work ; their baskets were of a vast 

 number of different patterns, many of them exceedingly neat, 

 and the making of them was an art practised by everyone, both 

 men and women. Essentially maritime in their tastes, they 

 excelled in the construction of their canoes, which were the 

 more to be admired as an adze made of stone, a chisel or gouge 



