not let them think in the least. Whenever they met with us and thought themselves superior they always attacked us, though seldom seeming to intend more than to provoke us to show them what we were able to do in this case. By many trials we found that good usage and fair words would not avail the least with them, nor would they be convinced by the noise of our firearms alone that we were superior to them; but as soon as they had felt the smart of even a load of small shot, and had time to recollect themselves from the effects of their artificial courage, which commonly took a day, they were sensible of our superiority and became at once our good friends, upon all occasions placing the most unbounded confidence in us. They are not, like the islanders,[1] addicted to stealing; but (if they could) would sometimes, before peace was concluded, by offering anything they had to sell, entice us to trust something of ours into their hands, and refuse to return it with all the coolness in the world, seeming to look upon it as the plunder of an enemy.
Neither of the sexes are quite so cleanly in their persons as the islanders; not having the advantage of so warm a climate, they do not wash so often. But the disgustful thing about them is the oil with which they daub their hair, smelling something like a Greenland dock when they are "trying" whale blubber. This is melted from the fat either of fish or birds. The better sort indeed have it fresh, and then it is entirely void of smell.
Both sexes stain themselves in the same manner with the colour of black, and somewhat in the same way as the South Sea Islanders, introducing it under the skin by a sharp instrument furnished with many teeth. The men carry this custom to much greater lengths; the women are generally content with having their lips blacked, but sometimes have little patches of black on different parts of the body. The man on the contrary seems to add to the
- ↑ Throughout the remainder of the Journal Banks constantly speaks of the South Sea Islands simply as "the islands," and their inhabitants as "the islanders."
