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 
