Description of the Men and Women. 143 
lice. Their beards were of the fame colour with their hair, 
and bufhy and thick : they are not however fullered to grow 
leng. A man whom we had feen one day with his beard 
fomewhat longer than his companions, we faw the next, with 
it fomewhat fhorter, and upon examination found the ends of 
the hair burnt : from this incident, and our having never 
feen any fharp inftrument among them, we concluded that 
both the hair and the beard were kept lhort by linging them. 
Both fexes, as I have already obferved, go Hark naked, and 
feem to have no more fenfe of indecency in difcovering the 
whole body, than we. have in difcovering our hands and face. 
Their principal ornament is the bone which they thrull thro’ 
the cartilage that divides the noflrils from each other : what 
perverfion of talte could make them think this a decoration, or 
what could prompt them, before they had worn it, or feen it 
worn, to fuffer the pain or inconvenience that mull of necef- 
fity attend it, is perhaps beyond the power of human fagacity 
to determine : as this bone is as thick as a man’s finger, and 
between live and fix inches long, it reaches quite acrofs the 
face, and fo effeflually Hops up both the noltrils that they are 
forced to keep their mouths wide open for breath, and fnuffle 
fo When they attempt to fpeak, that they are fcarcely intel- 
ligible even to each other. Our feamen, with feme humour, 
called it their fprit-fail-yard ; and indeed it had fo ludicrous 
an appearance, that till we were ufed to it, we found it diffi- 
cult to refrain from laughter. Belide this nofe-jewel, they 
had necklaces made of fhells, very neatly cut and llrung toge- 
ther ; bracelets of fmall cord, wound two or three times about 
the upper part of their arm, and a firing of plaited human hair, 
about as thick as a thread of yarn, tied round the waill. Be- 
fides thefe, fome of them had gorgets of fhells hanging round 
the neck, fo as to reach crofs the bread. But though thefe 
people wear no clothes, their bodies have a covering befides 
the dirt, for they paint them both white and red : the red is 
commonly laid on in broad patches upon the fhoulders and 
bread ; and the white in llripes, fome narrow, and fome broad: 
the narrow were drawn over the limbs, and the broad over the 
body, not without fome degree of talle. The white was 
alfo laid on in fmall patches upon the face, and drawn in a 
circle round each eye. The redfeemed to be ochre, but what 
the white was we could not difeover ; it was clofe grained, fa- 
ponaceous to the touch, and almolt as heavy as white lead ; 
poffibly it might be a kind of Steatites, but to our great regret 
we could not procure a bit of it to examine. They have holes 
in their ears, but we never faw any thing worn in them. 
Upon fuch ornaments as they had, they fet fo great a value, 
that they would never part with the leal! article for any thing 
we could offer ; which was the more extraordinary as our beads 
and 
