Page:Twenty years before the mast - Charles Erskine, 1896.djvu/262

 of the ship, and within hail of it. We built a log-cabin for a pendulum house, to take the place of the old one  which was scattered to the four winds of heaven from  the summit of Mauna Loa. It was soon finished, the instruments set up, and everything complete.

The Indians at this place belonged to the flat-headed tribes. When infants their heads are compressed by a sort of clamp, which gives them a wedge-shape. The females, commonly called squaws, were very scantily  attired, and were very fond of ornaments. A small, dirty bone, two or three inches long, was stuck through  the cartilage of the nose. All the unmarried squaws wore small brass bells suspended around the rims of the  ears. Most of the women were bow-legged. The men were rather short and thick-set, with high cheek-bones,  fine eyes, set wide apart, and black hair, which was worn  long and flowing. The countenances of both sexes wore an expression of wildness.

On the banks of the river is dug a kind of ochre, both yellow and red, with which these Indians paint their  faces. Their language was the strangest we had yet heard. Such words as klick, kluck, tsk, sustiki, and squassus, we did not understand; but saantylku and  selamp both meant hot, gathering brooms, and August;  skelues meant exhausted salmon, and September; skaai  meant dry moon, and October; kinni-etylyutin meant  house-making, and November; and kumakwala meant  snow-moon, and December.

Independence Day fell on Sunday, so we celebrated on Monday. We commenced at daybreak by firing a national salute of twenty-six guns, one for each State in