400 



MASSACRE ISLANDS. 



[1830. 



With respect to dress but little can be said. Some of them wear 

 tappers, made of the inner bark of the cocoanut-tree, which is tied round 

 their loins like an apron, and reaches about half-way down to the knees. 

 But the most of them, of both sexes, go entirely naked, if we except 

 their ornaments, which consist of gaudy feathers, shells, bones, teeth 

 of fish, <fec, with 'which they ornament their heads, ears, noses, necks, 

 arms, wrists, loins, thighs, legs, and ankles. The chiefs are distin- 

 guished by chaplets of red feathers, which encircle their brows, and 

 wave gracefully in the breeze. This headdress, when inverted, and 

 applied to the loins, becomes a very tasteful tapper, or covering for 

 those parts which nature has shown a desire to conceal, ever since 

 the first tapper of fig-leaves was sewed in the Garden of Eden. 



During my visit on shore, I saw enough of their war implements to 

 convince me that they would be, in case of hostilities, very formidable 

 enemies. These consist of bows, arrows, spears, war-clubs, and battle- 

 axes. The bows are about eight feet in length, being made of the 

 outer part of the cocoanut-tree ; they are light, strong, and very elastic. 

 The inner bark of the same tree furnishes the bowstrings. The arrows 

 are made of a small reed that grows in abundance on one of the islands ; 

 it being very straight, and about the thickness of a lady's ring-finger. 

 These fatal shafts are about five feet in length, and pointed with hard 

 wood. 



Their spears are made of the same material as their bows, and are 

 about sixteen feet in length, handsomely tapered off to a point at each 

 end, elegantly carved in the centre, and finished and polished with so 

 much care and taste, that they have the appearance of black ebony. 

 Their war-clubs are also made of the same material ; and are four 

 feet in length, with aflat blade at one end, five inches wide, and sharp 

 edges. The other end, which is the handle, is nearly round, and just large 

 enough to fit the hand. The extremity of this end is a round ball or 

 knob, corresponding to the pommel of a sword, on which are carved 

 the head, face, and features of a ferocious negro. Their battle-axes 

 are about eighteen inches long, with one end just large enough to grasp 

 conveniently in the hand ; while on the other end they have a carved 

 head, the size of a cocoanut-shell, representing the ferocious aspect 

 of a tattooed warrior, painted for the battle. 



The canoes of these islanders are constructed of a solid log, about 

 twenty feet in length, two feet wide, and about two feet in depth. They 

 are made of a very light buoyant wood, something like the cabbage- 

 tree. Their paddles are four feet long, and six inches wide at the 

 blade ; being made of the same kind of wood as the battle-axes, which 

 resembles our live oak. 



Such is a brief description of the people (and their means of an- 

 noying intruders) among which we had now fallen, and with whose 

 chief I had entered into a sort of treaty of amity in commerce, with 

 the utmost good faith on my part. How well this implied contract was 

 fulfilled on the part of his sable majesty yet remains to be seen. 



In concluding this chapter, it may not be improper to give the reader 

 a clearer idea of an article of commerce which is destined to make a 

 considerable figure in this narrative, and which has already been fre- 



