MALICOLLO, one of the largest of the New
Hebrides, in the Pacific ocean. It extends twenty
leagues from north to south. Its inland mountains are
very high, and clad with forests. Its vegetable produc-
tions are luxuriant, and in great variety; cocoa-nuts,
breadfruit, bananas, sugar-cones, yams, eddoes, turne-
ric, and oranges. Hogs and common poultry are the
domestic animals. The inhabitants appear to be of a
race totally distinct from those of the Friendly and So-
ciety islands. Their form, language, and manners, are
widely different. They seem to correspond in many
particulars with the natives of New Guinea, particularly
in their black colour and woolly hair. They go al-
most naked, are of a slender make, have lively but
very irregular ugly features, and tie a rope fast round
their belly. They use bows and arrows as their prin-
cipal weapons, and the arrows are said to be sometimes
poisoned. They keep their bodies entirely free from
punctures, which is one particular that remarkably
distinguishes them from the other tribes of the Pacific
ocean.
The population, according to Mr Forster, may a-
mount to 50,000, who occupy 600 square miles of
ground. The same author informs us that very few wo-
men were seen, but that those few were no less ugly
than the men, were of small stature, and their heads,
faces, and shoulders were painted red. They had
bundles on their backs containing their children, and
the men seemed to have no kind of regard for them.
They appeared in fact to be oppressed, despised, and in
a state of servility.
The men use bows and arrows, and a club about 30
inches long, which they hang on their right shoulder,
from a thick rope made of a kind of grass. They live
chiefly on vegetables, and apply themselves to hu-
bandry. Their music had nothing remarkable in it,
either for harmony or variety, but seemed to Mr For-
ster to be of a more lively turn than that at the Friend-
ly islands. In some of their countenances he thought
he could trace a mischievous, ill-natured disposition,
but he confesses that he might mistake jealousy for
hatred. It is in 16° 28' S. Lat. and 167° 56' E.
Long.