The wives of the common people frequently wear for bracelets and ankle rings strips of the country cloth or skin of the metamelth painted in figures, and those of the king or principal chiefs, bracelets and necklaces consisting of a number of strings of _Ife-waw_, an article much prized by them, and which makes a very handsome appearance. This _Ife-waw_, as they term it, is a kind of shell of a dazzling whiteness and as smooth as ivory; it is of a cylindrical form, in a slight degree curved, about the size of a goose quill, hollow, three inches in length and gradually tapering to a point, which is broken off by the natives as it is taken from the water; this they afterwards string upon threads of bark and sell it by the fathom; it forms a kind of circulating medium among these nations, five fathoms being considered as the price of a slave, their most valuable species of property. It is principally obtained from the Aitizzarts, a people living about thirty or forty miles to the northward, who collect it from the reefs and sunken rocks with which their coast abounds, though it is also brought in considerable quantity from the south.[77] Their mode of taking it has been thus described to me:--To one end of a pole is fastened a piece of plank, in which a considerable number of pine pegs are inserted, made sharp at the ends; above the plank, in order to sink it, a stone or some weight is tied, and the other end of the pole suspended to a long rope; this is let down perpendicularly by the _Ife-waw_ fishers in those places where that substance is found, which are usually from fifty to sixty fathoms deep. On finding the bottom, they raise the pole up a few feet and let it fall; this they repeat a number of times, as if sounding, when they draw it up and take off the _Ife-waw_ which is found adhering to the points. This method of procuring it is very laborious and fatiguing, especially as they seldom take more than two or three of these shells at a time, and frequently none. Though the women, as I have said, make but little use of paint, the very reverse is the case with the men. In decorating their heads and faces they place their principal pride, and none of our most fashionable beaus when preparing for a grand ball can be more particular; for I have known Maquina, after having been employed more than an hour in painting his face, rub the whole off, and recommence the operation anew, when it did not entirely please him.