in complexion they were nearly white, of good stature,
and finely formed; and on their faces and bodies were delineated representations
of fishes and other devices.« The old Don then goes on to say: »There came,
among others, two lads paddling their canoe, whose eyes were fixed on the ship;
they had beautiful faces, and the most promising animation of countenance, and
were in all things so becoming, that the pilot-mayor Quiros affirmed, nothing in
his life ever caused him so much regret as the leaving such fine creatures to be
lost in that country.«5 More than two hundred years have gone by since the
passage of which the above is a translation was written; and it appears to me
now, as I read it, as fresh and true as if written but yesterday. The islanders
are still the same; and I have seen boys in the Typee valley, of whose beautiful
faces and promising animation of countenance no one who has not beheld them can
form any adequate idea. Cook, in the account of his voyages, pronounces the
Marquesans as by far the most splendid islanders in the South Seas. Stewart, the
chaplain of the U.S. ship Vincennes, in his Scenes in the South Seas, expresses,
in more than one place, his amazement at the surpassing loveliness of the women;
and says that many of the Nukuheva damsels reminded him forcibly of the most
celebrated beauties in his own land. Fanning, a Yankee mariner of some
reputation, likewise records his lively impressions of the physical appearance
of these people; and Commodore David Porter, of the U.S. frigate Essex, is said
to have been vastly smitten by the beauty of the ladies. Their great superiority
over all other Polynesians cannot fail to attract the notice of those who visit
the principal groups in the Pacific. The voluptuous Tahitians are the only
people who at all deserve to be compared with them; while the dark-hued
Hawaiians and the woolly-headed Feejees are immeasurably inferior to them. The
distinguishing characteristic of the Marquesan islanders, and that which at once
strikes you, is the European cast of their features - a peculiarity seldom
observable among other uncivilised people. Many of their faces present a profile
classically beautiful, and in the valley of Typee, I saw several who, like the
stranger Marnoo, were in every respect models of beauty.
    Some of the natives present at the Feast of Calabashes had displayed a few
articles of European dress, disposed, however, about their persons after their
own peculiar fashion. Among these I perceived the two pieces of cotton cloth
