Page:A Lady's Cruise in a French Man-of-War.djvu/282

250, whereas the men average over six feet. As in Tahiti and other tropical climates, the constitution ripens at a very early age, so that mere children may be seen playing with their own babies instead of dolls. Happily the responsibilities of housekeeping do not weigh heavily in these isles, where nature is so generous, the climate so genial, and food so abundant.

I am told that the bread-fruit tree in particular flourishes in the Marquesas to an extent unknown elsewhere, and grows to an enormous size—the ripe fruit, either freshly gathered or in its manufactured form of poi, forming the staple food of the isles.

The Marquesans have the same love of flowers as their neighbours, and the girls vie one with another in producing the loveliest garlands, bracelets, and anklets, sometimes of blossoms and leaves intertwined, but more often of single flowers, plucked from their calyx and strung together on a thin fibre of tappa, while snowy buds take the place of pearl ear-rings. The fragrant white blossoms of a large tree are those most in favour.

But the permanent adornment is that of tattooing, which the Marquesans have brought to greater perfection than any other South Sea Islanders, except perhaps the Maoris of New Zealand, their very fair skin affording a tempting parchment for the artist's work. The patterns are quaint, and very elaborately worked out in every conceivable variety of curve. Some of the older men are thus decorated from head to foot. Even the face is not spared, a favourite pattern being a strongly marked triangle, the base sweeping across the lips from ear to ear, whence the other lines ascend, crossing both eyelids, to meet on the shaven crown. Other men prefer three broad stripes carried straight across the face,—one across the eyes, a second across the nose, a third sweeping across the mouth from ear to ear. A really well-tattooed man is a sort of walking volume of illustrated natural history, so numerous may be the strange creatures of earth, sea, and air, delineated on his much-enduring skin,—birds and butterflies, fishes and crabs, lizards and snakes, octopi and star-fish, flowers and fruits, all traced in delicate blue lines on a most silky, olive-coloured surface. Those who go in for artistic unity of design sometimes have the stem of some