Page:Voyage in search of La Perouse, volume 2 (Stockdale).djvu/98

76 to imitate them in their course, and besides it was time for us to return on board.

These natives appeared to us to have the greatest resemblance to those whom we had seen a few days before; only we observed some, in whom one of the middle teeth of the upper jaw was wanting, and others in whom both were gone. We could not learn the object of this custom; but it is not general, for the greater part of the people had all their teeth.

They appeared to be equally ignorant with the others of the use of the bow.

Almost all of them were tatooed with raised points, sometimes placed in two lines, one over the other, much in the shape of a horse-shoe; though frequently these points were in three straight and parallel lines on each side of the breast: some were observed, too, toward the bottom of the shoulder blades, and in other places.

In many the navel appeared puffed up, and very prominent, but we assured ourselves, that this deformity was not occasioned by a hernia. Perhaps it is owing to the too great distance from the abdomen, at which the umbilical cord is separated.

They acquainted us that they lived upon fish, as