was the very practice used here, where we saw it in a much
nearer interview, as some of our people had it blown in their
eyes. Their chief, upon hostile occasions, powdered his body all
over, so that it was no difficult matter to discover him.

They also upon such occasions painted their faces red; some
had marks upon their arms and shoulders, occasioned by scarifying
those parts in long stripes, and letting the sore rise above the
surface of the skin; they frequently wore a bone or reed thrust
through the septum of the nose, and, like the natives of Lord
Howe's Groupe, had also holes cut through the wings of the nose,
into which were fixed short pieces of hollow reed, as ladies wear
wires to keep the ears open when newly bored; into these hollows
or rings they occasionally stuck long pieces of reed, which are
no doubt considered by them as ornamental. The men in general
were well looking people, but such of their women as I saw were
very ordinary.

The weapons used by the people of this island were lances of
different kinds, some were made of a kind of ebony, or hard wood,
about ten feet long, frequently ornamented with feathers of
different colours at the upper end; others were made of bamboo,
pointed with hard wood; the lance is thrown by hand, but they had
not the use of the throwing stick, like the natives of New South
Wales: they also, in their quarrels, used the sling for throwing
stones, which appears to be made of some tough dried leaf,
several times doubled; the strings were manufactured from some
soft, silky, and fibrous plant; they throw a round hard pebble,
of which they generally carried a small nett full about them; the
stones were about the size of a small fowl's egg, and flew with
much force, and great exactness from the sling: they had also a
long unhandy kind of club. They used, in fishing, a fishing
spear, small seine netts, and hooks and lines; their hooks were
of tortoise-shell, from which circumstance there can be no doubt
but they have either turtle in their neighbourhood, or the
tortoise upon the island.

They had a kind of musical instrument, with which they
sometimes, in their canoes alongside, endeavoured to amuse us; it
was composed of a number of hollow reeds of different lengths,
fastened together, but they did not seem to be very expert in
proportioning their lengths, or tuning them to harmony: sound,
not concord, seemed to be all they expected from it; they blew
into the mouth of t