ion of the men. Of the other charms
of the ladies I shall be silent, though justice obliges me to mention,
that, in the opinion of some amongst us, they shew a degree of timidity
and bashfulness, which are, perhaps, inseparable from the female
character in its rudest state. It is not a little singular, that the
custom of cutting off the two lower joints of the little finger of the
left hand, observed in the Society Islands, is found here among the
women, who have for the most part undergone this amputation. Hitherto
we have not been able to trace out the cause of this usage. At first we
supposed it to be peculiar to the married women, or those who had borne
children; but this conclusion must have been erroneous, as we have no
right to believe that celibacy prevails in any instance, and some of the
oldest of the women are without this distinction; and girls of a very
tender age are marked by it.

On first setting foot in the country, we were inclined to hold the
spears of the natives very cheap. Fatal experience has, however,
convinced us, that the wound inflicted by this weapon is not a trivial
one; and that the skill of the Indians in throwing it, is far from
despicable. Besides more than a dozen convicts who have unaccountably
disappeared, we know that two, who were employed as rush cutters up
the harbour, were (from what cause we are yet ignorant) most dreadfully
mangled and butchered by the natives. A spear had passed entirely
through the thickest part of the body of one of them, though a very
robust man, and the skull of the other was beaten in. Their tools were
taken away, but some provisions which they had with them at the time of
the murder, and their cloaths, were left untouched. In addition to this
misfortune, two more convicts, who were peaceably engaged in picking of
greens, on a spot very remote from that where their comrades suffered,
were unawares attacked by a party of Indians, and before they could
effect their escape, one of them was pierced by a spear in the hip,
after which they knocked him down, and plundered his cloaths. The poor
wretch, though dreadfully wounded, made shift to crawl off, but his
companion was carried away by these barbarians, and his fate doubtful,
until a soldier, a few days afterwards, picked up his jacket and hat
in a native's hut, the latter pierced through by a spear. We have found
that these spears are not made invariably alike, some of them being
barbed like a fish gig, and