where they spend the night and
return the next morning with a fair wind. The noise and scrambling
alongside when bartering is going on baffles all description--besides the
usual talking and shouting, they have a singular habit of directing
attention to their wares by a loud, sharp ss, ss, a kind of hissing
sound, equivalent to look at this.

MODE OF BARTERING.

In their bargaining the natives have generally been very honest, far more
so than our own people whom I have frequently seen cheating them by
passing off scraps of worthless iron, and even tin and copper, for pieces
of hoop, the imposition not being found out until the property has
changed hands. As at the Louisiade iron hoop is the article most prized
by the natives, and is valued according to its width and thickness as a
substitute for the stone-heads of their axes. They also showed great
eagerness to obtain our hatchets and fish-hooks, but attached little
value to calico, although a gaudy pattern, or bright colour, especially
red, was sure to arrest attention; but in such matters they are very
capricious. Even glass bottles were prized, probably as a substitute for
obsidian or volcanic glass, portions of which I saw among them, used in
shaving, as was explained to me, and probably also for carving in wood.

NATIVE LADIES ON BOARD.

August 25th.

Yesterday and today, in addition to upwards of a hundred natives
alongside bartering, we were honoured with visits from several parties of
the Tassai ladies, in whose favour the prohibition to come on board was
repealed for the time. The young women were got up with greater attention
to dress and finery than when seen on shore, and some had their face
blackened as if to heighten their attractions. The outer petticoat, worn
on gala days such as this, differs from the common sort in being much
finer in texture and workmanship, besides being dyed red and green, with
intermediate bands of straw colour and broad white stripes of palm-leaf.
It is made of long bunches of very light and soft shreds, like fine
twisted grass, apparently the prepared leaf of a calamus or rattan. None
of the women that I saw possessed even a moderate share of beauty
(according to our notions) although a few had a pleasing expression and
others a very graceful figure, but, on the other hand, many of the boys
and young men were strikingly handsome. We had no means of forming a
judgment regarding the condition of the women in a social state, but