128 GENERAL ACCOUNT OF SOUTH SEA ISLANDS cu. vir 
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 34 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 
