ASPECT OF THE PEOPLE. 279 



chattels were safe, and afterwards sitting down 

 quietly as if at home. With our glasses, we now 

 had a pretty fair view of the people. Both men 

 and women appeared rather tall than otherwise ; 

 some of the former were robust, but all the latter 

 of a thin lanky figure. They were both per- 

 fectly naked, and their colour of a dirty brown. 

 Their heads seemed small, and very low and square 

 about the forehead ; the hair was commonly short, 

 close, and frizzled, but some of the men had it in 

 long pipe-like curls. Their faces had a general 

 resemblance to those of the islanders ; but they 

 seemed more ugly, and had a more fierce and 

 savage looking expression of countenance. We 

 could discern no marks or scars, either on the 

 shoulders or any other part of their bodies. After 

 looking over the village, the men assembled in the 

 balcony of the large house watching us, and now 

 and then shooting an arrow at us ; but finding they 

 fell short, soon desisted. 



At dead low water we had two fathoms here 

 alongside ; and as soon as the flood tide made we 

 weighed and proceeded, finding then two and a half 

 in the centre of the river. As soon as we left, a 

 canoe with two men stood off from the village and 

 went across the river. About a couple of miles 

 above Pigville the arm we were in entered another, 

 which ran N.N.W. and S.S.E., and was about two 

 miles in width. At the junction we found a bar of 

 soft mud, with a depth of water of only about nine 

 feet. The Prince George still drew eleven feet ; 



