1770 DESCRIPTION OF NATIVES 309 



rubbing, but altered the colour very little, which as nearly 

 as might be resembled chocolate. The beards of several 

 were bushy and thick ; their hair, which as well as their 

 beards was black, they wore close cropped round their ears. 

 In some it was as lank as an European's, in others a little 

 crisped, as is common in the South Sea Islands, but in none 

 of them at all resembling the wool of the negroes. They 

 had also all their fore teeth, in which two points they differ 

 chiefly from those seen by Dampier, supposing him not to 

 be mistaken. As for colour they would undoubtedly be 

 called black by any one not used to consider attentively 

 the colours of different nations. I myself should never 

 have thought of such distinctions, had I not seen the 

 effect of sun and wind upon the natives of the South Sea 

 Islands, where many of the better sort of people, who keep 

 themselves close at home, are nearly as white as Europeans ; 

 while the poorer sort, obliged in their business of fishing, 

 etc., to expose their naked bodies to all the inclemencies of 

 the climate, are in some cases but little lighter than the 

 New Hollanders. They were all to a man lean and clean- 

 limbed, and seemed very light and active. Their counte- 

 nances were not without some expression, though I cannot 

 charge them with much, their voices in general shrill and 

 effeminate. 



Of clothes they had not the least part, but were naked 

 as ever our general father was before his fall, whether from 

 idleness or want of invention is difficult to say. In the 

 article of ornaments, however, useless as they are, neither 

 has the one hindered them from contriving, nor the other 

 from making them. Of these the chief, and that on which 

 they seem to set the greatest value, is a bone 5 or 6 inches 

 in length, and as thick as a man's finger, which they thrust 

 into a hole bored through that part which divides the nostrils, 

 so that it sticks across the face, making in the eyes of 

 Europeans a most ludicrous appearance, though no doubt 

 they esteem even this as an addition to their beauty, which 

 they purchase by hourly inconvenience ; for when this bone 

 was in its place, or, as our seamen termed it, when their 



