144 GENERAL ACCOUNT OF SOUTH SEA ISLANDS cu, vir 
their candles—made of the kernel of a nut abounding much 
in oil—are then lighted. Many of these are stuck upon a 
skewer of wood, one below the other, and give a very 
tolerable light, which they often keep burning an hour after 
dark, and if they have any strangers in the house it is 
sometimes kept up all night. 
Their drums they manage rather better: they are made 
of a hollow block of wood, covered with shark’s skin; with 
these they make out five or six tunes, and accompany 
the flute not disagreeably. They know also how to tune 
two drums of different notes into concord, which they do 
nicely enough. They also tune their flutes; if two persons 
play upon flutes which are not in unison, the shorter is 
lengthened by adding a small roll of leaf tied round the end 
of it, and moved up and down till their ears (which are 
certainly very nice) are satisfied. The drums are used 
chiefly in their heiwas, which are at Otahite no more than a 
set of musicians, two drums for instance, two flutes and two 
singers, who go about from house to house and play. They 
are always received and rewarded by the master of the 
family, who gives them a piece of cloth or whatever else he 
can spare; and during their stay of maybe three or four 
hours, receives all his neighbours, who crowd his house full. 
This diversion the people are extravagantly fond of, most 
likely because, like concerts, assemblies, etc., in Europe, they 
serve to bring the sexes easily together at a time when the 
very thought of meeting has opened the heart and made 
way for pleasing ideas. The grand dramatic heiva which we 
saw at Ulhietea is, I believe, occasionally performed in all 
the islands, but that I have so fully described in the journal 
(3rd, 7th, and 8th August) that I need say no more 
about it. 
Besides this they dance, especially the young girls, when- 
ever they can collect eight or ten together, and setting their 
mouths askew in a most extraordinary manner, in the 
practice of which they are brought up from their earliest 
childhood. In doing this they keep time to a surprising 
nicety ; I might almost say as truly as any dancers I have 
