all,
and extremely well limbed; not one of them unwieldy or corpulent like a
Taheitian, nor meagre and shrivelled like a native of Easter Island. The
punctuation" (by which he meant the tattooing) "which almost entirely
covered the men of a middle age, made it difficult to distinguish their
elegance of form; but among the youths, who were not yet marked or
tattooed, it was easy to discover beauties singularly striking, and
often without a blemish, such as demanded the admiration of all
beholders. Many of them might be placed near the famous models of
antiquity, and would not suffer in the comparison:

"_Qualis aut Nireus fuit, aut aquosa
Raptus ab Ida."_
HOR.

"The natural colour of these youths was not quite so dark as that of the
common people in the Society Isles; but the men appeared to be
infinitely blacker, on account of the punctures which covered their
whole body, from head to foot. These punctures were disposed with the
utmost regularity; so that the marks on each leg, arm, and cheek, and on
the corresponding muscles, were exactly similar. They never assumed the
determinate form of an animal or plant, but consisted of a variety of
blotches, spirals, bars, chequers, and lines, which had a most motley
appearance."[13]

[12] J. Cook, _Voyages_, iii. 284.

[13] G. Forster, _Voyage round the World_, ii. 14 _sq._ Compare
Krusenstern, _op. cit._ i. 152 _sq._; U. Lisiansky, _Voyage
round the World_ (London, 1814), p. 85; G. H. von Langsdorff,
_Reise um die Welt_ (Frankfurt am Mayn, 1812), i. 92 _sqq._;
Fleurieu, _op. cit._ i. 96 _sqq._; Vincendon-Dumoulin et C.
Desgraz, _op. cit._ pp. 216 _sqq._; Eyriaud des Vergnes, _op.
cit._ p. 39.

Similarly, speaking of the Taipiis or Typees, Melville observes, "In
beauty of form they surpassed anything I had ever seen. Not a single
instance of natural deformity was observable in all the throng attending
the revels. Occasionally I noticed among the men the scars of wounds
they had received in battle; and sometimes, though very seldom, the loss
of a finger, an eye, or an arm, attributable to the same cause. With
these exceptions, every individual appeared free from those blemishes
which sometimes mar the effect of an otherwise perfect form. But their
physical excellence did not merely consist in an exemption from these
evils; nearly every individual of their number might have been taken for