"They are in general of the middle size,[3] and well-proportioned. Their movements are graceful, they run swiftly, and are able to carry great weights. The men, however, are inferior to the Friendly Islanders, in strength and activity; and the women are not so delicately formed as those of Tahaiti: their colour is also a little browner, and they are not so handsome, but the features of both sexes are open and agreeable; the females especially have beautiful eyes and teeth, and a sweet expression of countenance. Their hair is dark-brown, not so smooth as that of the American Indians, nor so woolly as that of the negroes of Africa, but between the two. "Here, as on the other South Sea Islands, the Yeris are advantageously distinguished in form from the lower classes, and are seldom disfigured by the swellings and ulcers frequent among the latter, which we ascribed to the great use of salt in their preparations of meat and fish; the former, however, are much injured by immoderate indulgence in the Ava drink. Those who suffered most from it had their whole bodies covered with a white eruption: their eyes were red and inflamed, they trembled much, and could scarcely hold up their heads. This beverage does not shorten the lives of all who use it too freely, as Teraiopu, Kau, and several other chiefs addicted to it, were old men; but it brings on premature and diseased old age. Fortunately, this luxury is the exclusive privilege of the chiefs. The son of Teraiopu, a boy of twelve years old, often boasted of having obtained the right of drinking Ava, and showed with much complacency a spot on his loins where the eruption was already visible. "Notwithstanding the great and irreparable loss which the sudden violence of these Sandwich Islanders has occasioned us," (in the death of Cook,) "I must in justice declare, that they are usually gentle and kind, and by no means so changeable and volatile as the Tahaitians, nor so reserved and melancholy as the Friendly Islanders: they live on the best possible terms with each other, and in peace and kindness in their families. We have often admired the care and tenderness with which the women treated their children, while the men assisted them in their domestic occupations with a readiness and good-will which did them great credit. "If however we should pronounce on the degree of civilization to which they have attained by the estimation the female sex enjoys among them, they would rank but low in the scale. The women are not only forbidden to eat with the men, but the best kinds of food are denied them. They are not allowed to eat pork, turtle, or several kinds of fish and bananas; and we were informed that a poor girl had been severely beaten for having tasted of these prohibited viands on board our ship. The females seemed indeed almost to live in a state of separation from their lords; and although we never perceived that they were ill treated, it is certain they are held in little respect.