how to employ the stolen goods.  Upon the whole, the pilfering disposition of these islanders, though certainly disagreeable and troublesome to strangers, was the means of affording us some information as to the quickness of their intellects.  For their small thefts were committed with much dexterity; and those of greater consequence with a plan or scheme suited to the importance of the objects.  An extraordinary instance of the last sort, their attempts to carry away one of the Discovery’s anchors at mid-day, has been already related.

Their hair is, in general, straight, thick, and strong, though a few have it bushy and frizzled.  The natural colour, I believe, almost without exception, is black; but the greatest part of the men, and some of the women, have it stained of a brown or purple colour, and a few of an orange cast.  The first colour is produced by applying a sort of plaster of burnt coral, mixed with water; the second, by the raspings of a reddish wood, which is made up with water into a poultice, and laid over the hair; and the third is, I believe, the effect of turmeric root.

When I first visited these islands, I thought it had been an universal custom for both men and women to wear the hair short; but, during our present longer stay, we saw a great many exceptions.  Indeed, they are so whimsical in their fashions of wearing it, that it is hard to tell which is most in vogue.  Some have it cut off from one side of the head, while that on the other remains long; some have only a portion of it cut short, or perhaps shaved; others have it entirely cut off, except a single lock, which is left commonly on one side; or it is suffered to grow to its full length, without any of these mutilations.  The women in general wear it short.  The men have their beards cut short; and both men and women strip the hair from their arm pits.  The operation by which this is performed has been already described.  The men are stained from about the middle of the belly, to about half way down their thighs, with a deep, blue colour.  This is done with a flat bone instrument, cut full of fine teeth, which, being dipped in the staining mixture, prepared from the juice of the dooe dooe, is struck into the skin with a bit of stick, and, by that means, indelible marks are made.  In this manner they trace lines and figures, which, in some, are very elegant, both from the variety, and from the arrangement.  The women have only a few small lines or spots, thus imprinted, on the inside of their hands.  Their kings, as a mark of distinction, are exempted from this custom, as also from inflicting on themselves any of those bloody marks of mourning, which shall be mentioned in another place.

The men are all circumcised, or rather supercised; as the operation consists in cutting off only a small piece of the foreskin at the upper part, which, by that means, is rendered incapable ever after of covering the glans.  This is all they aim at; as they say, the operation is practised from a notion of cleanliness.