138
A VOYAGE ROUND THE WORLD.
1773.
April.
took the paper: upon which captain Cook coming up to him, took hold of his hand, and embraced him, touching the man's nose with his own, which is their mode of salutation. His apprehension was by this means dissipated, and he called to the two women, who came and joined him, while several of us landed to keep the captain company. A short conversation ensued, of which very little was understood on both sides, for want of a competent knowledge of the language. Mr. Hodges immediately took sketches of their countenances, and their gestures shewed that they clearly understood what he was doing; on which they called him
tóä-tóä, that term being probably applicable to the imitative arts. The man's countenance was very pleasing and open; one of the women, which we afterwards believed to be his daughter, was not wholly so disagreeable as one might have expected in New Zeeland, but the other was remarkably ugly, and had a prodigious excrescence on her upper lip. They were all of a dark brown or olive complexion; their hair was black, and curling, and smeared with oil and ruddle; the man wore his tied upon the crown of the head, but the women had it cut short. Their bodies were tolerably well proportioned in the upper part; but they had remarkable slender, ill-made, and bandy legs. Their dress consisted of mats made of the New Zeeland flax-plant
[1],
- ↑ See Hawkesworth's Compilation, vol. III. p. 443.
interwoven
