339 
chap, v.] WEST INDIES. 
been mentioned of a scramble on shipboard), that the 
negroes themselves were oppressed with many of 
those painful sensations which a person unaccus¬ 
tomed to the scene would naturally attribute to 
such apparent wretchedness. The circumstance of 
being exposed naked, is perhaps of little account 
to those who were never sensible of the necessity 
or propriety of being clothed. The climate requires 
not the aid of dress, nor are the negroes, though 
naked, destitute of decorations, on which, at their 
first arrival, they seem to set a much higher estima¬ 
tion than on raiment; most of the nations of Africa 
having their skin, particularly on the forehead, the 
breast, and round the waist, punctured or impres* 
sed with figures and representations of different 
kinds, (squares, circles, triangles, and crescents), si¬ 
milar to the practice which prevails in Otaheite , and 
the other islands of the South Sea, called tatoivhig, 
as described in the voyages of captain Cook. Like 
those islanders too, some of the newly imported 
negroes display these marks with a mixture of os¬ 
tentation and pleasure, either considering them as 
highly ornamental, or appealing to them as testi¬ 
monies of distinction in Africa; where, in some 
cases, they are said to indicate free birth and ho¬ 
nourable parentage.* The negroes are apprised 
* Some of the negroes of the Gold coast, or the adjacent coun* 
tries (the Cbamba negroes for instance) appear to me to use the sam , 
or nearly the same marks as the savages of New Zealand, viz. deep inci¬ 
sions on each cheek drawn circularly from the ear to the mouth. {Vide 
Hawkes-uwrth's Voyages, vol. iii. c. 9.). It is ridiculous enough, that 
some of the writers against the slave-trade should asciibe these marks 
