always parted with it reluctantly. Some of
the pieces were octangular, and had the appearance of being formed
into that shape by art.

The persons of the natives are, in general, under the common stature;
but not slender in proportion, being commonly pretty full or plump,
though not muscular. Neither doth the soft fleshiness seem ever to
swell into corpulence; and many of the older people are rather spare
or lean. The visage of most of them is round and full, and sometimes
also broad, with high prominent cheeks; and, above these, the face is
frequently much depressed, or seems fallen in quite across between
the temples; the nose also flattening at its base, with pretty wide
nostrils, and a rounded point. The forehead rather low, the eyes
small, black, and rather languishing than sparkling; the mouth round,
with large round thickish lips, the teeth tolerably equal and well
set, but not remarkably white. They have either no beards at all,
which was most commonly the case, or a small thin one upon the point
of the chin, which does not arise from any natural defect of hair on
that part, but from plucking it out more or less; for some of them,
particularly the old men, have not only considerable beards all over
the chin, but whiskers or mustachios, both on the upper lip, and
running from thence toward the lower jaw obliquely downward.[3] Their
eye-brows are also scanty, and always narrow; but the hair of the head
is in great abundance, very coarse and strong, and, without a single
exception, black, straight, and dank, or hanging down over the
shoulders. The neck is short, the arms and body have no particular
mark of beauty or elegance in their formation, but are rather clumsy;
and the limbs in all are very small in proportion to the other parts,
and crooked or ill-made, with large feet badly shaped, and projecting
ancles. Their last defect seems in a great measure to arise from
their sitting so much on their hams or knees, both in their canoes and
houses.

[Footnote 3: One of the most curious singularities observable in the
natural history of the human species, is the supposed defect in
the habit and temperature of the bodies of the American Indians,
exemplified in their having no beards, while they are furnished with
a profusion of hair on their heads. M. de Paw, the ingenious author
of Recherches sur les Americains, Dr Robertson, in his History of
America, and, in general, the writers for whose authority we ought to
ha