slightly retroussed, lips clean-cut, chins modestly assertive with
lower jaws superbly adapted to cracking cocoanuts and oysters, foreheads
low with sufficient projection at the eye-line for shade purposes. All
in all, they are entitled to an A-plus in beauty and reminded me less
of Polynesians than of a hand-picked selection of Caucasians who had
been coated with a flat-bronze radiator paint.

Beards, moustaches, imperials, goatees, side-whiskers and Galways are
unknown, a fact which was to me strange considering the luxuriance of
other vegetation until I learned that, from infancy, it is the custom
of the Filbertine mother to scour her offspring's face with powdered
coral which discourages the facial follicles. These eventually give
up and, turning inward and upward, result in a veritable crown of glory
on the top of the head, the place, after all, where the hair ought to
grow. Their teeth, as with most gramnivora, are sound, regular,
brilliantly white and exceptionally large, the average size being that
of the double-blank domino.

So much for the men, and far too much, if you ask me, when you think
that we still have the adorable women to speak of.

Ever since our first nocturnal glimpse of the charming creatures you
can imagine that my companions and I were most eager to see more of
them. During the entire next day not one of "les belles sauvages" was
visible. It was next to impossible to make inquiries, but Swank, the
irrepressible, resolved to try and plied Baahaabaa with questions in
French, English, German and beche-de-mer, which only resulted in loud
laughter on the part of our host. Swank next tried pantomime, using
the French gesture for beauty, a circular motion of the hands about
his face accompanied by sickening smiles. Baahaabaa watched him