Note (return) — Chapter IV · TRANSACTIONS AMONGST THE NATIVES OF NORTH AMERICA; DISCOVERIES ALONG THAT COAST AND THE EASTERN EXTREMITY OF ASIA, NORTHWARD TO ICY CAPE; AND RETURN SOUTHWARD TO THE SANDWICH ISLANDS.

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.