ADORNING THE HAIR. 135 
single jessamine blossoms, or a small wreath inter¬ 
woven with their black and shining ringlets. They 
displayed great taste in the use of flowers, and 
the adorning of their hair. Frequently I have 
seen them with beautiful wreaths of yellow flowers, 
worn like fragrant necklaces on their bosoms, and 
garlands of the same around their brows, or small 
bunches of the brilliant scarlet hibiscus rosce chi - 
nensis fastened in their hair. Though totally 
unacquainted with what we are accustomed to 
call artificial flowers, yet the brilliant and varied 
odoriferous plants, that grew spontaneously among 
their mountains or their valleys, did not suffice to 
gratify their wishes; they were therefore accus¬ 
tomed to manufacture a kind of artificial flowers, 
by extracting the petals and leaflets of the most 
fragrant plants and flowers, and fastening them with 
fine native thread, to the wiry stalk of the cocoa- 
nut leaf, which they saturated with monoi, or 
scented oil, and wore in each ear, or fixed in the 
native bonnet, made with the rich yellow cocoa- 
nut leaf. The men, though unaccustomed to 
adorn their hair with flowers, were careful of pre¬ 
serving and dressing it. They generally wore it 
long, and often fastened in a graceful braid on the 
crown, or on each side of the head, and spent not 
a small portion of their time in washing and per¬ 
fuming it with scented oil, combing and adjusting 
it. When it was short, they sometimes dressed 
it with the gum of the bread-fruit tree, which gave 
it a shining appearance, and fixed it as straight as 
if it had been stiffened with rosin. The open air 
was the general dressing-place of both sexes; and 
a group of females might often be seen sitting 
under the shade of a clump of wide-spreading 
trees, or in the cool mountain-stream, employing 
