128 GENERAL ACCOUNT OF SOUTH SEA ISLANDS CH. vn 



are obliged in the exercise of their profession, fishing 

 especially, to be much exposed to the sun and air, are 

 of a dark brown, while those of superior rank, who spend 

 most of their time in their houses under shelter, are seldom 

 browner (the women particularly) than that kind of brunette 

 which many in Europe prefer to the finest red and white. 

 Complexion, indeed, they seldom have, though some I have 

 seen show a blush very manifestly ; this is perhaps owing 

 to the thickness of their skin, but that fault is in my 

 opinion well compensated by their infinite smoothness, much 

 superior to anything I have met with in Europe. 



The men, as I have before said, are rather large. I 

 have measured one 6 feet 3 J inches. The superior women 

 are also as tall as Europeans, but the inferior sort are 

 generally small. Their hair is almost universally black 

 and rather coarse, this the women wear always cropped 

 short round their ears ; the men, on the other hand, wear 

 it in many various ways, sometimes cropping it short, some- 

 times allowing it to grow very long, and tying it at the 

 top of their heads or letting it hang loose on their shoulders, 

 etc. Their beards they all wear in many different fashions, 

 always, however, plucking out a large part of them and 

 keeping what is left very clean and neat. Both sexes 

 eradicate every hair from under their armpits, and they 

 looked upon it as a great mark of uncleanliness in us that 

 we did not do the same. 



During our stay in these islands I saw some, not more 

 than five or six, who were a total exception to all I have 

 said above. They were whiter even than we, but of a dead 

 colour, like that of the nose of a white horse ; their eyes, 

 hair, eyebrows, and beards were also white ; they were 

 universally short-sighted, and always looked unwholesome, 

 the skin scurfy and scaly, and the eye often full of rheum. 

 As no two of them had any connection with one another, 

 I conclude that the difference of colour, etc., was totally 

 accidental, and did not at all run in families. 



So much for their persons. I shall now mention their 

 methods of painting their bodies, or tattow as it is called in 



