The natives are rather diminutive in stature, but active when occasion requires. They live in great simplicity. The females are remarkably good-looking; but, owing to their practice of _squatting_ to their work, and remaining in that posture most of the time, are very awkward in walking. Their ears are bored when quite young, and the hole is made larger by inserting in it a roll of leaves, which causes it to enlarge as they advance in years. They generally have them fitted with a bunch of flowers, of which they are passionately fond. Many of them have their noses pierced, and flowers inserted therein. They are generally employed making _tappas_, or, as they call them in English, “Strong’s Island trowsers,” for the chiefs to whom they belong. Tappa is manufactured from the fibres of the banana-tree, colored with different barks to suit their taste, and woven, by means of a small but ingenious loom, into bands of four or five feet in length, and eight or ten inches in width, with the different colors very ingeniously and beautifully intermixed. The body and principal part of the tappa is black, and comprises all the dress worn by the men or women, from the king down. Sometimes, however, the king and chiefs indulge in the luxury of a calico shirt; but the “court dress,” the red woolen shirt, is only worn on _great_ occasions. The females, also, will sometimes sport a _gingham shirt_, if they are lucky enough to be presented with one by the chief to whom they belong. Their _crinoline_, however, is not very extensive. The men are employed cutting wood for their respective chiefs, building houses, making canoes, gathering fruit, etc. Their food consists principally of fish, bread-fruit, fayees, cocoanuts, and other fruit. The fish are generally eaten raw, and smell rather _high_ before they use them. [Illustration: STRONG’S ISLAND HOUSES.] Their houses are built of bamboo, thatched with cocoanut leaves. The king’s house is very large, being fifty or sixty feet high, and about forty feet square. Some of the chiefs have also very large, roomy houses. The common ones for the natives are from thirty to forty feet high, and about twenty feet square. They are kept very neat. In the centre of the house is a square stone fireplace. The king and chiefs have large cook-houses, where all the cooking of the different tribes is done, and each family is served once a day. Each chief has from fifty to two hundred natives under him, including men, women, and children. No one of the natives is allowed more than one wife, and when the marriage ceremony is performed (which is done by the king for the chiefs, and by the chiefs for the common natives), the girl is “given away” by the one who officiates, and is then _tabooed_. The penalty of breaking this taboo is death; therefore there is not much fear but that she will remain faithful to her husband.