548 



PROPORTIONS 



—ATTIRE. 



Nov. 



are rounded, and smooth. They stride along in an imposing 

 manner, occasionally recalling ideas of the giants of history. 

 Although, generally speaking, they are taller than the Pata- 

 gonians, they do not, to the eye, appear so large. This ocular 

 deception must arise from the better proportion of the Otahei- 

 tans. The native of Patagonia lias a large, coarse looking 

 head, with high cheek bones, and a 'mane-like' head of hair: 

 his shoulders are high and square ; his chest very wide ; while 

 to heighten the effect of these traits, each of which gives one 

 an idea of size, a great rough mantle, made of the woolly skin 

 of the guanaco, thrown loosely round his shoulders, hangs 

 almost to his feet. But the Otaheitan head is singularly well 

 formed ; and, if phrenology is not altogether a delusion, few 

 men are more capable of receiving instruction, or doing credit 

 to their teachers, than these islanders, so often described, yet 

 by no means enough known. Their hands, and more especially 

 their feet, have been said to be of the Papua form ; but the 

 shape of the latter is owing, it appears to me, to their always 

 going barefooted : and I observed their hands particularly with- 

 out being able to distinguish any peculiarity whatever in the form. 



The young men frequently wear a wreath of leaves, or 

 flowers, round the head, w^hich, though becoming, has rather a 

 Bacchanalian appearance. Some cut their hair short, others 

 shave the greater part of their head, but solely from caprice: 

 not one could give me any reason beyond that which ig implied 

 in " it is the fashion."*"* 



It is seldom that one meets a native entirely naked ; I mean 

 naked excepting the girdle which is always worn : generally 

 they have a garment, or a piece of one, obtained from a white 

 man. These remnants, often tattered, and, among the lower 

 classes, always dirty, disfigure them much. Those whom I 

 saw, with only a native girdle, but whose bodies were tattowed 

 in the old fashion, appeared to my eye much less naked than 

 the young men, not tattowed, and only half clothed. I shall 

 not forget the very unpleasant impression made upon my mind, 

 at first landing, by seeing a number of females, and children, 

 with a few men, half dressed in the scanty, dirty, and tattered 



