VATE. 223 



a notch ; and they are therefore in the habit of resting 

 them upon a knot in the string. It appears that the district 

 from which these men came is but ill furnished with fire- 

 arms, but towards the point of the bay weapons of foreign 

 manufacture are less rare. 



Under engagement to take back my guides to the 

 ' Dayspring,' which was to sail at midday, I was obliged, to 

 my great regret, to put an end to my excursion. On re- 

 turning to the beach we found it crowded with women just 

 returned from fishing, and bearing baskets full of moUusks 

 and crabs. These women appeared as civil, good-humoured, 

 and as well disposed as the men ; they were for the most 

 part sitting on their haunches on the sand, with their knees 

 up, and their legs wide apart. A fine-grown plump young 

 woman, not so dark as the others, seemed to have some 

 sense of modesty ; she turned her side towards me, and 

 covered her breast with her hands. Excepting this one, 

 they were all very ugly, with short curly hair, pendent 

 bx'easts, and thin spare legs. They had nothing wherewith 

 to cover their nakedness save a narrow strip of maro ; some 

 of them had merely their thighs wrap]3ed up in a piece of 

 stuff or tapa, which was tinted yellow by a sort of ochre.^ 



I retm-ned with my two guides to the ' Dayspring.' The 

 Eev. Mr. Paton, whom I met there, made me a present of 



' In addition to this, tliey sometimes have depending from the belt 

 a broad strip of worked grass matting, expanding at the end into a 

 fringe a foot and a half long, and reaching to the calf of the leg, look- 

 ing very much like a tail. — Erskine, p. 332, where there is a woodcut re- 

 presenting thisappendage. I have some specimens of it in my collection. 



