WHALING VOYAGE. 
825 
that the natural enamel was not injured by the prepara- 
tion they made use of for coating it with jet. In conse- 
quence of their shabby appearance, they seemed corre- 
spondingly unassuming in their demeanour, and readily 
gave way to the well-prepared dandy gentleman, who 
boldly appeared in all the ornaments I have mentioned 
before— with his bracelets of shells, and armlets of tor- 
toise-shell ; his extended nose, his frizzled and powdered 
hair, his jetted teeth, his painted face, with his small 
neat calabash of lime hanging from his left forearm, and 
green bread-fruit stems, with which u ever and anon” 
he chafed his teeth, chewing also his betel nut, big 
with importance, presenting himself in studied attitude, 
and courting our notice with unceasing avidity. After 
we had been on board to dine, and had again returned to 
the shore, we observed great numbers of people coming 
along the winding and sandy beach, apparently from 
all parts of the island ; some of them were carrying 
potatos, and some were not. We had not seen any of 
their women, but this time we observed a few congre- 
gated closely together behind some trees, where they 
could not be well seen by the people on the shore, who 
were near the boats. We had observed them for some 
time before we could make out distinctly whether they 
were women or men ; but some of them altering their 
positions, soon convinced us what they were ; and all of 
us wishing to look upon the charms of those tropical 
strangers, we moved our boats a little distance towards 
them, which had the effect of causing them to disappear 
entirely — not doing so in our opinion from their own 
