A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16Kerr, Robert
History
A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16
Kerr, Robert
Voyages and travels
Besides the stone or rock that constitutes the mountains and shores,
which sometimes contains pieces of very coarse _quartz_, we found
amongst the natives, things made of a hard black _granite_, though not
remarkably compact or fine grained, a greyish whetstone, the common
oil-stone of our carpenters, in coarser and finer pieces, and some
black bits which are little inferior to the hone-stone. The natives
also use the transparent leafy _glimmer_, or Muscovy glass, a brown
leafy or martial sort, and they sometimes brought to us pieces of
rock-crystal, tolerably transparent. The two first are, probably,
found near the spot, as they seemed to be in considerable quantities;
but the latter seems to be brought from a greater distance, or is very
scarce; for our visitors always parted with it reluctantly. Some of
the pieces were octangular, and had the appearance of being formed
into that shape by art.
The persons of the natives are, in general, under the common stature;
but not slender in proportion, being commonly pretty full or plump,
though not muscular. Neither doth the soft fleshiness seem ever to
swell into corpulence; and many of the older people are rather spare
or lean. The visage of most of them is round and full, and sometimes
also broad, with high prominent cheeks; and, above these, the face is
frequently much depressed, or seems fallen in quite across between
the temples; the nose also flattening at its base, with pretty wide
nostrils, and a rounded point. The forehead rather low, the eyes
small, black, and rather languishing than sparkling; the mouth round,
with large round thickish lips, the teeth tolerably equal and well
set, but not remarkably white. They have either no beards at all,
which was most commonly the case, or a small thin one upon the point
of the chin, which does not arise from any natural defect of hair on
that part, but from plucking it out more or less; for some of them,
particularly the old men, have not only considerable beards all over
the chin, but whiskers or mustachios, both on the upper lip, and
running from thence toward the lower jaw obliquely downward.[3] Their
eye-brows are also scanty, and always narrow; but the hair of the head
is in great abundance, very coarse and strong, and, without a single
exception, black, straight, and dank, or hanging down over the
shoulders. The neck is short, the arms and body have no particular
mark of beauty or elegance in their formation, but are rather clumsy;
and the limbs in all are very small in proportion to the other parts,
and crooked or ill-made, with large feet badly shaped, and projecting
ancles. Their last defect seems in a great measure to arise from
their sitting so much on their hams or knees, both in their canoes and
houses.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account