This fashion appears to be most popular with the females,
for their noses are the ugliest. Their hair is jet black and thick,
but coarse; the women and girls generally wear it plaited in two
knots. The colour of their skin is a copper-brown. All the natives
are tattooed, generally from the hips half down the legs, and
frequently this mode of ornamenting themselves is extended to the
hands, feet, or other parts of the body. The designs resemble
arabesques; they are regular and artistic in their composition, and
executed with much taste.
That the population of this place should be so vigorous and well-
formed is the more surprising, if we reflect on their depraved and
immoral kind of life. Little girls of seven or eight years old have
their lovers of twelve or fourteen, and their parents are quite
proud of the fact. The more lovers a girl has the more she is
respected. As long as she is not married she leads a most dissolute
life, and it is said that not all the married women make the most
faithful wives possible.
I had frequent opportunities of seeing the national dances, which
are the most unbecoming I ever beheld, although every painter would
envy me my good fortune.
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