h they can be called) is the bark of a
tree called by them "_karamal_." This tree grows from thirty to forty
feet high, and is two or three feet in circumference. The hair of both
males and females is worn long; it is coarse and stiff, and of a color
resembling that of the natives of North America. They make free use of
the oil extracted from the cocoa-nut; with this they anoint their
bodies, considering it the extreme of gentility to have the skin
entirely saturated with it. Their arms, and sometimes the lower parts of
the body and legs, are ingeniously tattooed. Their complexion is a light
copper. Their eyes have a very singular appearance, being of a reddish
color. Their noses were somewhat flat, but not so flat as those of the
Africans; nor are their lips so thick. They are excessively fond of
trinkets. It would cause a fashionable lady of America to smile, to
observe the pains taken by those simple daughters of nature to set off
their persons. In their ears they wear a sort of ornament made of a
peculiar kind of grass, which they work into a tassel; this is painted
and richly perfumed. In their noses they wear a stem of the _kabooa_
leaf, which answers the double purpose of an ornament and a smelling
bottle; and their arms, in addition to being tattooed in the manner
above mentioned, are adorned with a profusion of shells. Our fair
readers may judge how much we were amused, on finding that the
copper-colored females of the island cut up our old shoes into
substitutes for jewelry, and seemed highly delighted with wearing the
shreds suspended from their ears.

Our further acquaintance with this extraordinary people confirmed us in
the opinion, that the ceremony of marriage is unpractised and unknown
among them. The chiefs appropriate to themselves as many females as they
please, and in the selection they exercise this despotism over the
affections without regard to any other laws than those of caprice.
Reserving a more particular account of their manners, customs and mode
of living for another place, I content myself with observing at this
time, that the people of these islands, generally speaking, are in the
rudest state imaginable. It is true that some sense of propriety, and
some regard to the decencies of life, were observable; nor did they
appear entirely destitute of those feelings which do honor to our
nature, and which we should hardly expect to find in a people so rude
and barbarous.

Such were the beings