THE PRLEW ISLANDS. 
of the latter, the quicknefs with which they feemed to com- 5 7 8 3 - 
L AUGUST, 
prehend whatever information the Malay gave them. The 
next thing they noticed was our people’s hands, and the blue 
veins of their wrifts; and they probably confidered the white 
fkin of the hands and face as artificial, and the veins as the 
Engli/fc manner of tatooing, for they immediately requefted^ 
that the jacket-fleeves of the men might be drawn up, to fee 
if their arms were of the fame colour as their hands and 
faces : fatisfied in this particular, they expreffed a further 
wifh to fee their bodies; upon which fome of the men opened 
their bofoms, and gave them to underhand that all the reft 
of their body w T as the fame .—They feemed much aftonifhed 
at finding hair on their breads, it being confidered with 
them as a great mark of indelicacy, infomuch that they era¬ 
dicate it from every part of the body in both fexes* 
They afterwards walked about, teftifying great curiofity, 
but at the fame time exprefting a fear that they intruded too 
much. As they had come on fhore unarmed, this confidera- 
tion induced Captain Wilson, before lie fhewed them the 
tents, to order that all the fire-arms fliould be put out of fight, 
by covering them with a fail, that the mutual confidence, 
which had fohappily fprung up on both ftdes, might not be 
chilled or overfhadowed by the flighted: miftruft; but this 
well-conceived intention was fruftrated by an accident.—As 
our people were conducing them to the tents, clofe by the 
entrance, one of the natives picked up a bullet, which had 
beem 
