*78 COOK’s VOYAGE. 
purpofe, and others that wore fine cotton, or muflin, in the 
manner of a fmalJ turban. 
Thefe people bore their teftimony that the love of finery is 
a umverfal pafficn, for their ornaments were very numerous. 
Some of the better fort wore chains of goli round their necks, 
but they were made of plaited wire, and confequently were 
light and of little value ; others had rings, which were fo 
much worn that they feemed to have defeended through many 
generations ; and oneperfon had a filver-headed cane, marked 
with a kind of cypher, conflfting of the Roman letters V. O. 
C. and therefore probably a prefent from the Dutch Eaft In- 
dia Company, whole mark it is : they have alfo ornaments 
made of beads, which fome wear round their necks as a foli- 
taire, and others, as bracelets, upon their wrifts : thefe are 
common to both fexes, but the women have befides, firings 
or girdles of beads, which they wear round their waifis, and 
which ferve to keep up their petticoat. Both fexes had their 
ears bored, nor was there a fingle exception t at fell under 
our notice, yet we never faw an ornament in any of them ; 
we never indeed faw either man or woman in anv thine but 
what appeared to be their ordinary drefs, except the King and 
his Minifter, -who in general wore a k : nd of night-gown of 
CCSTtS CniP.tz, md nr.C of whom once received us in a black 
robe, which appeared to be made of what is called prince’s 
fiuif. We faw fome boys, about twelve or fourteen years old, 
who had fpiral circles of thick brafs wire palled three or four 
times round their arms, above the elbow, and fome men wore 
rings of ivory, two inches in breadth, and above an inch in 
thicknefs, upon the fame part of the arm : thefe, we were told, 
were the fons of the Rajas, or Chiefs, who w'ore thefe cum- 
brous ornaments as badges of their high birth. 
Almofi all the men had their names traced upon their arms, 
in indelible charadters of a black colour, and the women had 
a fquare ornament of flourifhed lines, impreffed in the fame 
manner, juft under the bend of the elbow. V/e were ftruck 
with the fimilitude between thefe marks, and thofe made by 
tattowing in the South Sea iflands, and upon enquiring into 
its origin, we learnt that it had been praftifed by the natives 
long before any Europeans came among them ; and that in 
the neighbouring iflands the inhabitants were marked with 
circles upon their necks and breafts. The univerfality of this 
practice, which prevails among favages in all parts of the 
world, from the remoteft limits of North America, to the 
iflands in the South Seas, and which probably differs but little 
from the method of ftaining the body that was in ufe among 
the ancient inhabitants of Britain, is a curious fubjeft for fpe- 
culation f . The 
•f In the account which Mr. BofTu has given of fome Indians w he inhabit 
the 
