Their skins were so uniformly covered with dirt, that it was very difficult to ascertain their true colour: we made several attempts, by wetting our fingers and rubbing it, to remove the incrustations, but with very little effect. With the dirt they appear nearly as black as a Negroe; and according to our best discoveries, the skin itself is of the colour of wood soot, or what is commonly called a chocolate colour. Their features are far from being disagreeable, their noses are not flat, nor are their lips thick; their teeth are white and even, and their hair naturally long and black, it is however universally cropped short; in general it is strait, but sometimes it has a slight curl; we saw none that was not matted and filthy, though without oil or grease, and to our great astonishment free from lice. Their beards were of the same colour with their hair, and bushy and thick: they are not however suffered to grow long. A man whom we had seen one day with his beard somewhat longer than his companions, we saw the next, with it somewhat shorter, and upon examination found the ends of the hairs burnt: from this incident, and our having never seen any sharp instrument among them, we concluded that both the hair and the beard were kept short by singeing them.

Voyaging Accounts