h very little effect. With the dirt they appear nearly as black as a
negro; and according to our best discoveries, the skin itself is of the
colour of wood-soot, or what is commonly called a chocolate-colour.
Their features are far from being disagreeable, their noses are not
flat, nor are their lips thick; their teeth are white and even, and
their hair naturally long and black, it is however universally cropped
short; in general it is straight, but sometimes it has a slight curl; we
saw none that was not matted and filthy, though without oil or grease,
and to our great astonishment free from lice. Their beards were of the
same colour with their hair, and bushy and thick: They are not however
suffered to grow long. A man whom we had seen one day with his beard
somewhat longer than his companions, we saw the next, with it somewhat
shorter, and upon examination found the ends of the hairs burnt: From
this incident, and our having never seen any sharp instrument among
them, we concluded that both the hair and the beard were kept short by
singeing them.[90]

[Footnote 90: It is somewhat curious that almost all savages entertain
an abhorrence at hair on any other part of the body than the head; and
some of them even to that. Two reasons, at least, may be assigned for
it, both of them, however, somewhat hypothetical, it must be owned. 1.
Their admiration of youth--the same principle which induces some
_civilized_ people to powder their heads, and _dye_ their whiskers, &c.
when assuming the silvery hue of age! And, 2. Their having learned by
experience that it rendered them more obnoxious to vermin and filth. The
hair of the head is one of the finest objects in human beauty, and as
such, probably in defiance of interlopers, has been generally saved in
its natural state, or made the basis of important decorations.--E.]

Both sexes, as I have already observed, go stark naked, and seem to have
no more sense of indecency in discovering the whole body, than we have
in discovering our hands and face. Their principal ornament is the bone
which they thrust through the cartilage that divides the nostrils from
each other: What perversion of taste could make them think this a
decoration, or what could prompt them, before they had worn it or seen
it worn, to suffer the pain and inconvenience that must of necessity
attend it, is perhaps beyond the power of human sagacity to determine:
As this bone is as thick as a man's finger, and between