1770 NATIVE HABITS 311 



their hair was generally matted, and filthy enough. In all 

 of them, indeed, it was very thin, and seemed as if seldom 

 disturbed by the combing even of their fingers, much less to 

 have any oil or grease put into it. Nor did the custom of 

 oiling their bodies, so common among most uncivilised 

 nations, seem to have the least footing here. 



On their bodies we observed very few marks of cutaneous 

 disorders, such as scurf, scars of sores, etc. Their spare thin 

 bodies indicate a temperance in eating, the consequence 

 either of necessity or inclination, equally productive of 

 health, particularly in this respect. On the fleshy parts of 

 their arms and thighs, and some of their sides, were large 

 scars in regular lines, which by their breadth and the con- 

 vexity with which they had healed, showed plainly that 

 they had been made by deep cuts of some blunt instrument, 

 possibly a shell or the edge of a broken stone. These, as 

 far as we could understand the signs they made use of, 

 were the marks of their lamentations for the deceased, 

 in honour of whose memory, or to show the excess of their 

 grief, they had in this manner wept in blood. 



For food they seemed to depend very much, though not 

 entirely, upon the sea. Fish of all kinds, turtle, and even 

 crabs, they strike with their lances very dexterously. These 

 are generally bearded with broad beards, and their points 

 smeared over with a kind of hard resin, which makes them 

 pierce a hard body far more easily than they would without it. 

 In the southern parts these fish-spears had four prongs, 

 and besides the resin were pointed with the sharp bone of a 

 fish. To the northward their spears had only one point, 

 yet both, I believe, struck fish with equal dexterity. For the 

 northern ones I can witness, who several times saw them 

 through a glass throw a spear from ten to twenty yards, and 

 generally succeed. To the southward again the quantity of 

 fish bones we saw near their fires proved them to be no 

 indifferent artists. 



In striking turtle they use a peg of wood well bearded, 

 and about a foot long ; this fastens into the socket of a staff 

 of light wood as thick as a man's wrist, and eight or nine 



