‘ ‘ Aimy’s wife and two daughters now arrived, which occasioned another grand crying cere mony; and when it was over, the three ladies came to look at me and my companions. In a short time, they had taken a fancy to some small gilt buttons which I had on my waist coat; and Aimy making a sign for me to cut them off, I immediately did so, and presented them for their acceptance. They received them very gladly, and, shaking hands with me, exclaimed, ‘The white man is very good.’ ‘ ‘ The whole of the natives having then seated themselves on the ground in a ring, we were brought into the middle and, being stripped of our clothes, and laid on our backs, we were each of us held down by five or six men, while two others commenced the operation of tattooing us. “Having taken a piece of charcoal, and rubbed it upon a stone with a little water until they had produced a thickish liquid, they then dipped into it an instrument made of bone, having a sharp edge like a chisel, and shaped in the fashion of a garden-hoe, and immediately applied it to the skin, striking it twice or thrice with a small piece of wood. This made it cut into the flesh as a knife would have done, and caused a great deal of blood to flow, which they kept wiping off with the side of the hand, in order to see if the impression was sufficiently clear. When it was not, they applied the bone a second time to the same place. They employed, however, various instruments in the