By this time there was
quite a little crowd of people assembled round, amongst whom I noticed
one woman with a baby, who had her hair sticking straight out all
round her head, and another who held a portion of her dress constantly
before her face. After the gentlemen had walked away she removed the
cloth, and I then saw that her nose had been cut off. Most of the
women were good-looking, with dark complexions and quantities of
well-greased, neatly-plaited black hair, but we did not see a single
young girl, though there were plenty of children and babies, and lots
of boys, the latter of whom, like some of the older women, had only a
piece of palm matting round their loins. We therefore came to the
conclusion that the girls must have been sent away intentionally when
the approach of the yacht was observed.
[Illustration: Our First Landing in the South Pacific, Hao or Bow
Island.]
As soon as I was seated, the head-woman told one of the men to knock
down some cocoa-nuts from the trees close by, and after cutting off
the ends she offered us a drink of the fresh cool milk, which was all
the sweeter and better for the fact that the nuts were not nearly
ripe. While this was going on, the natives brought piles of
cocoa-nuts, fish, and fowls, and laid them at our feet as a present.
Pages:
266
267
268
269
270
271
272
273
274
275
276
277
278
279
280
281
282
283
284
285
286
287
288
289
290