172 ASPECT OF KER[AM. 



The younger women were often gracefully formed, 

 with pleasing expressions of countenance, though 

 not what we should consider handsome features. 

 The girls had their hair rather long, but the women 

 had almost all their hair cut short, with a bushy 

 ridge over the top, to which they, singularly enough, 

 give the same name as to pieces of tortoise-shell, 

 namely, " kaisu." Many of the elder women had 

 their heads shaved quite smoothly, and we never 

 saw a woman wearing a wig, or with the long ring- 

 lets of the men. At our first landing, all the younger 

 women and girls kept in the back-ground, or hid 

 themselves in the bush. On strolling to the back 

 of the huts, we found a small native path, along 

 which we went a short distance, till we came to a 

 rude fence in front of a plantain -ground, where the 

 men objected to our going further, and we heard 

 the voices of the women among the trees beyond. 



There were four huts at this spot, all bee-hive 

 shaped, sixteen feet in diameter, and as much in 

 height. They stood in small court-yards, partially 

 surrounded by fences formed of poles of bamboo, 

 stuck upright in the ground, close together, and 

 connected by horizontal rails, to which they were 

 tied by withes. Inside the huts were small plat- 

 forms covered with mats, apparently bed places ; 

 and over head were hung up bows and arrows, clubs, 

 calabashes, rolls of matting, and bundles apparently 

 containing bones, which they did not like our ex- 

 amining. Outside the huts were one or two small 

 open sheds, consisting merely of a raised flat roof, 



