376 DIFFERENCES nF STATURE. 



classical traveller Van Linschoten, who says they were 

 well-formed and large in the body. The variety in the 

 statements of different travellers makes it difficult to assign 

 any particular height ; but we are authorised in representing 

 • it as commonly reaching 6 feet, being often 5 or 6 inches 

 higher, and sometimes even 7 feet. 



Bougainville says that none were under 5 feet 6 inches, 

 and none over 5 feet 1 1 inches ; which, in English measure, 

 are about 5 feet 11 and 6 feet 4^ inches *. Commerson -f, 

 however, who was with him, makes some of the highest 

 6 feet 4 inches (6 feet 9-10 Eng.). Bougainville says that 

 their broad shoulders, large head, and stout limbs, made 

 them appear like giants. They were robust and well made, 

 with strong muscles, firm and compact flesh. 



Commodore Byron says of one who appeared to be the 

 chief of the party, " I did not measure him ; but if I may 

 judge of his height by the proportion of his stature to my 

 own, it could not be much less than 7 feet X- An English- 

 man of 6 feet 2 inches appeared among them as a pigmy 

 among giants. They were large and muscular in pro- 

 portion §. 



Captain Wallis measured several of them carefully: one 

 of them was 6 feet 7 inches : several were 6 feet 5 inches, 

 and 6 feet 6 inches, but the stature of the greater part 

 was from 5 feet 10 inches to 6 feet Ij. Carteret's ^ 

 statement coincides with this. 



« Voy. autour du Monde, 4to. p. 126. The crew of the Etoile had seen 

 several, in a preceding voyage, 6 feet high (nearly 6 feet 5 English). Ibid. 



De I.A GiRAODAis represented the least of those he saw, in 1766, as 5 feet 

 7 inches French, or more than 5 feet 1 1 inches English. 



Pernetty's //2S<. of a Voyage to the Falkland Islands, p. 288. The least 

 of those seen by Doclos Guyot were of the same size ; the rest considerably 

 taller. Ibid. p. 273. 



+ Letter to Lalande in the Journal Enclopedique, 1772. 



■^ Hawkesworth's Collection of Voyages, \. i. p. 28. 



^ Ibid. p. 32. 



II Ibid. p. 374. 



H Philosophical Transactions, v. 60. " We measured the height of many 

 of these people : they were in general all from 6 feet to 6 feet 5 inches, al- 



