The teeth are remarkably white and even, and the feet and hands small and well proportioned. The foot is very well developed, the native never having spoiled its beautiful mechanism with shoes or boots, and being accustomed to use the toes in many tasks wherein a civilized European requires his fingers. The toes are, for example, continually employed in holding one end of a rope, while the fingers are engaged in twisting or plaiting it; and the consequence is that the natives are able to ridicule with justice the misshapen feet and toes of the European. The men have naturally a full beard; but they always remove every vestige of hair on the face, in order to show the patterns which are tattooed upon it. Now and then a very old and powerful chief will dare to allow his beard to grow; but, as a rule, the face is divested of all covering: so that the absence of the beard, together with the profuse tattoo, destroys all evidences of age, and makes the countenance of a young man of twenty look nearly as old as that of his grandfather aged sixty. The hair is plentiful, and mostly straight, being twisted and curled by art into the various fashionable forms. In some cases it is light, or even reddish, in color; and in such instances accompanies a complexion of peculiar fairness. Albinism exists among the New Zealanders, but is not agreeable in appearance, the eyes being always weak, and the skin looking as if it had been artificially whitened. In fact, such an albino looks among his dark fellows like a plant that has been bleached by growing in the dark. There seems to be two castes of men among the New Zealanders. The upper caste is distinguished by the above characteristics; but the lower is shorter in stature, and has coarse and curly, though not woolly hair, more prominent cheekbones, and a much blacker skin. This second race, according to Dr. Dieffenbach, “is mixed in insensible gradations with the former, and is far less numerous; it does not predominate in any one part of the island, nor does it occupy any particular station in a tribe; and there is no difference made between the two races among themselves. [Illustration: NEW ZEALANDER FROM CHILDHOOD TO AGE. (See page 795.)] “But I must observe that I never met any man of consequence belonging to this tribe, and that, although freemen, they occupied the lower grades: from this we may, perhaps, infer the relation in which they stood to the earliest immigrants into the country, although their traditions and legends are silent on the subject.