sheep-skin.

These they sometimes dye with red

clay found in the mountains.

From the strength

and whiteness of the fibre manufactured from this plant, it is capable of being turned to great use.

Cleanliness.As the native cloth cannot be washed without destroying it, it is generally filthy in the extreme before it is laid aside. This has induced a habit of carelessness in washing cotton and other garments, which is very offensive and difficult to eradicate. They are cleanly, however, in other habits beyond most of the natives of Polynesia. Their floor and sleeping mats are kept clean and tidy. They generally use the juice of the wild orange in cleansing, and bathe regularly every day. It is worth remarking, too, that, while bathing, they have a girdle of leaves or some other covering round the waist. In this delicate sense of propriety it would be well for some more civilised parts of the world to learn a lesson from the Samoans.

Special Occasions.-At marriages and on other gala days, the women, and many of the men, laid aside the leaves and girded themselves with fine mats. Gay young men and women decorated themselves with garlands of flowers or shells. The nautilus shell, broken into small pieces, and strung together, was a favourite head-dress. They oiled themselves from head to foot with scented oil, and sometimes mixed turmeric with the oil to give their skin a tinge of yellow.

Both sexes kept uncovered the upper part of the body, and wore shells, beads, or other trinkets round the neck. They prided themselves also in dressing their children in a similar style. The women wore the hair short, and, on occasions, sometimes had it raised and stiffened with a mixture of scented oil and the gum of the bread-fruit tree. It was fashionable, also, for young women to have a small twisted lock of hair, with a curl at the end of it, hanging from the left temple. The men wore their hair long and gathered up in a knot on the crown of the head, a little to the right side. In company, however, and when attending religious services, they were careful to untie the string, and let their hair flow behind, as a mark of respect. Gay young men occasionally cut their hair short, leaving a small twisted lock hanging down towards the breast from either temple. Their hair is naturally black; but they were fond of dyeing it a light brown colour, by the application of lime, which they made by burning the coral. To dye hair, and also to rub and blind the eyes of pigs which trespassed into neighbouring plantations, were the only uses to which they applied lime in the time of heathenism.

The beard they shaved with the teeth of the shark. Armlets of small white shells were worn by the men above the elbow-joint. Some pierced their ears with a thorn, and wore a small flower for an earring; but this was not very common. A long

comb, made from the stem of the cocoa-nut leaflet, was a common ornament of the women, and worn in the hair behind the ear. For a looking-glass, they sometimes used a tub of water; but in arranging the head-dress, they were more frequently guided by the eyes and taste of others. The tattooing, which we described in a previous chapter, was also considered one of their principal ornaments.

There is a story told of a Fijian chief called Fulualela, Feathers-of-the-Sun, who came with his daughter to visit Samoa. He had heard of the beauty of the islands and their handsome inhabitants, and thought he might find here a husband chief for his daughter. He was greatly surprised, however, to discover that while the islands were lovely, and the people attractive, they had no mats in their houses, but slept on dried grass like the pigs. He could not think of leaving his daughter; but when he returned to Fiji he made up a present of fine mats, native cloth, and scented oil, as if it were his daughter's dowry, and went back to Samoa with the generous gift, adding also pandanus and paper mulberry plants with which to stock Samoa with material for making such household comforts as mats and native cloth. And hence it is said that ever since the gift of Feathers-of-the- Sun from Fiji, Samoa has had the luxuries of mats to sleep on, and sheets of native. cloth to cover them.

CHAPTER X.

AMUSEMENTS.

UNDER the head of amusements, dancing, wrestling, boxing, fencing, and a variety of games and sports, call for description, and to these we shall briefly advert.

Dancing was a common entertainment on festive occasions, such as a marriage. Some of their dances were in the daytime, and, like dress-balls of other countries, were accompanied with a display of fancy mats and other Samoan finery. At the night

assemblies the men dressed in their short leaf aprons. Sometimes only the men danced, at other times women, and occasionally the parties were mixed. They danced in parties of two, three, and upwards, on either side. If the one party moved in one direction, the other party took the opposite. They had also various gesticulations, which they practised with some regularity. If, for example, the one party moved along with the right arm raised, the other did precisely the same. It was posturing rather than saltation.

Singing, clapping the hands, beating time on the floor-mats, and drumming, were the usual musical accompaniments. Their music, on these occasions, was a monotonous chant of a line or two, repeated over and over again, with no variety beyond two or three notes. They sought variety rather in time. They began slow, and gradually increased until, at the end of ten or twenty minutes, they were full of excitement, the perspiration streaming down, and their tongues galloping over the rhyme at breathless speed. For a drum, they had two or three contrivances. One, a log of wood six or eight feet long, hollowed out from a narrow elongated opening on the upper surface; and this they beat with a short stick or mallet. Another was a set of bamboos, four feet long and downwards, arranged like a Pan's pipe, having the open ends inclosed in a mat bag, and this bag they beat with a stick. A third kind of drumming was effected by four or five men, each with a bamboo open at the top and closed at the bottom, with which, holding vertically, they beat the ground, or a stone or any hard substance, and as the bamboos are of various lengths, they emitted a variety of sounds. At these night-dances all kinds of obscenity in looks, language, and gesture prevailed; and often they danced and revelled till daylight.

Court buffoons furnished some amusement at dancing and other festivals, and also at public