PACIFIC AND BEERING'S STRAIT. 287 



CHAP. 

 IX. 



limits, rather than entirely suppressed. To some of 

 us, who had formed our opinion of the native dance ^-^r^- 

 of this island from the fascinating representation of i826.' 

 it by Mr. Webber, who accompanied Captain Cook, 

 that which we saw greatly disappointed our expec- 

 tation, and we turned from it to listen to the simple 

 airs of the females about the queen, who sang very 

 well, and were ready improvisatrices, adapting the 

 words of the song to the particular case of each 

 individual. 



While these amusements engaged the attention 

 of our party, scenes of a very different nature were 

 passing in the same apartment, which must have 

 convinced the greatest sceptic of the thoroughly 

 immoral condition of the people ; and if he reflected 

 that he was in the royal residence, and in the pre- 

 sence of the individual at the head of both church 

 and state, he would have either concluded, as Turn- 

 bull did many years before, that their intercourse 

 with Europeans had tended to debase rather than to 

 exalt their condition, or that they were wilfully 

 violating and deriding laws which they considered 

 ridiculously severe. 



In our intercourse with the chiefs and middle 

 classes of society, the impression left by this night's 

 entertainment was in some measure removed ; and 

 especially as regards the former, who are, on the 

 whole, a well-behaved class of men, though they are 

 much addicted to intemperance. A party of them, 

 among which were Utammee and Pa-why, came 

 on board one day, and having received a present of 

 a bottle of rum from the cabin, went to pay a visit 

 to the gun-room officers, who politely offered them 

 a glass of wine, but evincing some reluctance to this 



