rosy mouth opened with a burst of
merriment, they looked like the milk-white seeds of the "arta," a fruit of
the valley, which, when cleft in twain, shows them reposing in rows on
either side, embedded in the red and juicy pulp. Her hair of the deepest
brown, parted irregularly in the middle, flowed in natural ringlets over
her shoulders, and whenever she chanced to stoop, fell over and hid from
view her lovely bosom. Gazing into the depths of her strange blue eyes,
when she was in a contemplative mood, they seemed most placid yet
unfathomable; but when illuminated by some lively emotion, they beamed
upon the beholder like stars. The hands of Fayaway were as soft and
delicate as those of any countess; for an entire exemption from rude
labour marks the girlhood and even prime of a Typee woman's life. Her
feet, though wholly exposed, were as diminutive and fairly shaped as those
which peep from beneath the skirts of a Lima lady's dress. The skin of
this young creature, from continual ablutions and the use of mollifying
ointments, was inconceivably smooth and soft.

I may succeed, perhaps, in particularizing some of the individual features
of Fayaway's beauty, but that general loveliness of appearance which they
all contributed to produce I will not attempt to describe. The easy
unstudied graces of a child of nature like this, breathing from infancy an
atmosphere of perpetual summer, and nurtured by the simple fruits of the
earth; enjoying a perfect freedom from care and anxiety, and removed
effectually from all injurious tendencies, strike the eye in a manner
which cannot be portrayed. This picture is no fancy sketch; it is drawn
from the most vivid recollections of the person delineated.

Were I asked if the beauteous form of Fayaway was altogether free from the
hideous blemish of tattooing, I should be constrained to answer that it
was not. But the practitioners of this barbarous art, so remorseless in
their inflictions upon the brawny limbs of the warriors of the tribe, seem
to be conscious that it needs not the resources of their profession to
augment the charms of the maidens of the vale.

The females are very little embellished in this way, and Fayaway, and all
the other young girls of her age, were even less so than those of their
sex more advanced in years. The reason of this peculiarity will be alluded
to hereafter. All the tattooing that the nymph in question exhibited upon
her person may be easily described.