428 
VOYAGE OF THE POTOMAC. [September, 
most to European. Both men and women are better looking ; 
their teeth are remarkably white and regular ; their hair is worn 
short, and alike by both sexes. All use cocoanut-oil upon their 
persons, particularly the females — imparting to them an unpleasant 
odour. They are neat in their appearance : some dressed in 
frocks, and others in the tapa, worn as in the Sandwich Islands. 
They have but few ornaments ; occasionally a string of shells may 
be seen around the neck, or a single flower stuck through a hole 
with which the ears of the females are perforated. 
Their houses are by no means so neat as those of the Sand- 
wich Islands, neither inside nor out ; and their construction is 
different, — being flat-roofed, and quite open all round. In the 
manufacture of the native cloth they also display less ingenuity. 
Nature has been bountiful to them in the spontaneous production 
of every necessary to sustain life ; hence, feeling nothing of that 
keen necessity which is the parent of industry and the great in- 
centive to invention, it is not to be wondered at that they should 
be excessively idle and averse to labour. What inducement is 
there for them to cultivate the soil, when the bread-fruit, cocoa- 
nut, wild plantain, banana, orange, taro-root, and other vegetables 
and fruits, are constantly blooming into spring, and ripening 
into autumn, in an endless succession of the tropical seasons 1 
The country is finely wooded, in appearance resembling an ex- 
tensive and beautiful grove. There is nothing like a village ; but 
the huts are scattered here and there, beneath the cool and shady 
branches of some spreading tree; where the natives were mostly 
seated in little family groups, as happy as they were ignorant of 
the world beyond the limits of their own little isle. They were 
always ready to barter whatever they had to spare, though totally 
ignorant of the comparative value of things. There was positive 
enjoyment in our. unrestrained rambles "where fancy led," amid 
this new, this virgin scenery, 
" Where every trifle could a theme impart 
To instruct the mind, and captivate the heart :" 
the spirit found ample food, while wearied nature required some- 
thing a little more substantial. Meeting some natives with a dressed 
pig, ready for the spit, we struck a bargain for it ; and with a na- 
tive for our major domo, prepared for a feast a la Tahitian. A 
