The women are clothed in white cloth made from the paper mulberry, the dress extending from the shoulders to the feet, in double folds, and so loose as entirely to conceal the shape of the person.  The mothers, while nursing, carry the infant within their dress; as the child advances in growth it sits across the hip of the parent with its little hands clinging to the shoulder, while the mother’s arm passing round it keeps it in safety.  The men and boys, except on Sunday, when they appear in English dresses, generally wear only the mara, or waist-cloth, which, passing over the hips, and between the legs, is knotted behind; the climate is in fact too hot for cumbersome clothing.  The women, when working, use only a petticoat, with a jacket.

The men are stated to be from five feet eight inches to six feet high, of great muscular strength and excellent figures.  ‘We did not see,’ says Captain Waldegrave, ’one cripple or defective person, except one boy, whom, in the most good-humoured way, and laughing heartily, they brought to me, observing, “You ought to be brothers, you have each lost the right eye.”  I acknowledged the connexion, and no doubt for the future he will be called the Captain.’

Captain Beechey has given a more detailed account of the physical qualities of the Pitcairn Islanders.  He says they are tall, robust, and healthy; their average height five feet ten inches; the tallest man measured six feet and one quarter of an inch, and the shortest of the adults five feet nine inches and one-eighth; their limbs well proportioned, round and straight; their feet turning a little inwards.  A boy of eight years measured four feet and one inch; another of nine years, four feet three inches.  Their simple food and early habits of exercise give them a muscular power and activity not often surpassed.  It is recorded on the island that George Young and Edward Quintal have each carried, at one time, a kedge anchor, two sledge hammers, and an armourer’s anvil, weighing together upwards of six hundred pounds; and that Quintal once carried a boat twenty-eight feet in length.  In the water they are almost as much at home as on land, and can remain almost a whole day in the sea.  They frequently swim round their little island, the circuit of which is at the least seven miles; and the women are nearly as expert swimmers as the men.

The female descendants of the Otaheite women are almost as muscular as the males, and taller than the generality of the sex.  Polly Young, who is not the tallest on the island, measured five feet nine inches and a half.  The features of both men and women are regular and well-formed; eyes bright and generally hazel, though in a few instances blue; the eyebrows thin and rarely meeting; the nose a little flattened, and being rather extended at the nostrils, partakes of the Otaheitan character, as do the lips, which are broad and strongly sulcated; their ears moderately large, and the lobes are invariably united with the cheek; they are generally perforated, when young, for the reception of flowers, a very common custom among the natives of the South Sea Islands; hair black, sometimes curling, sometimes straight; teeth regular and white.  On the whole they are a well-looking people.