More fingers than one are never cut; and in every instance it is the same finger that has suffered.* [* In Patterson's Travels in Africa, lately published, we are told, that he met with a tribe of Hottentots near Orange River, all of whom had lost the first joint of the little finger: the reason they gave for cutting it off was, that it was a cure for a particular sickness to which they were subject when young.

Fourth Journey, p.117.It would be a curious coincidence of customs should it be discovered that the natives of New Holland do it for any similar reason.] The men are distinguished in a different manner: their fingers are not mutilated, but most of them, as other voyagers have observed, want the right front tooth in the upper jaw.

Governor Phillip having remarked this, pointed out to them that he had himself lost one of his front teeth, which occasioned a general clamour; and it was thought he derived some merit in their opinion from this circumstance.

The perforation of the cartilage that divides the nostrils, and the strange disfiguring ornament of a long bone or stick thrust through it, was now observed, as described by Captain Cook; and the same appellation of sprit-sail yard, was ludicrously applied to it by the sailors.

But several very old men were seen in this excursion who had not lost the tooth, nor had their noses prepared to receive that grotesque appendage: probably, therefore, these are marks of distinction: ambition must have its badges, and where cloaths are not worn, the body itself must be compelled to bear them.
Whether the scars raised upon the skin were of this kind, or as Captain Cook understood by their signs, marks of sorrow for deceased friends, could not now be learnt.