ut the women, who carefully clothe themselves, and
avoid the sun-beams, are but a shade or two darker than a European
brunette. Their eyes are black and sparkling; their teeth white and
even; their skin soft and delicate; their limbs finely turned; their
hair jetty, perfumed and ornamented with flowers; but we did not think
their features beautiful, as by continual pressure from infancy, which
they call _tourooma_, they widen the face with their hands, distend
their mouth, and flatten the nose and forehead, which gives them a too
masculine look; and they are in general large, and wide over the
shoulders; we were therefore disappointed in the judgment, we had formed
from the report of preceding visitors; and though here and there was to
be seen a living person who might be esteemed comely, we saw few who in
fact could be called beauties; yet they possess eminent feminine graces:
Their faces are never darkened with a scowl, or covered with a cloud of
sullenness or suspicion." This account fully concurs in what follows as
to the manners and behaviour of the Otaheitans.--E.]

The hair is almost universally black, and rather coarse; the men have
beards, which they wear in many fashions, always, however, plucking out
great part of them, and keeping the rest perfectly clean and neat. Both
sexes also eradicate every hair from under their arms, and accused us of
great uncleanness for not doing the same. In their motions there is at
once vigour and ease; their walk is graceful, their deportment liberal,
and their behaviour to strangers and to each other affable and
courteous. In their dispositions also, they seemed to be brave, open,
and candid, without either suspicion or treachery, cruelty, or revenge;
so that we placed the same confidence in them as in our best friends,
many of us, particularly Mr Banks, sleeping frequently in their houses
in the woods, without a companion, and consequently wholly in their
power. They were, however, all thieves; and when that is allowed, they
need not much fear a competition with the people of any other nation
upon earth. During our stay in this island we saw about five or six
persons like one that was met by Mr Banks and Dr Solander on the 24th of
April, in their walk to the eastward, whose skins were of a dead white,
like the nose of a white horse; with white hair, beard, brows, and
eyelashes; red, tender eyes; a short sight, and scurfy skins, covered
with a kind of white down; but we found t