310 
VOYAGE TO THE 
CHAP, reception, and desired that a dance might be performed for our enter- 
tainment. This was an indulgence we hardly expected, such perform- 
Marcii, ances being prohibited by law, under severe penalties, both against the 
performers, and upon those who should attend such exhibitions ; and 
for the same reason it was necessary that it should 1>3 executed quietly, 
and that the vivo, or reed pipe, should be played in an under tone, that 
it might not reach the ears of an aava, or policeman, who was parading 
the beach, in a soldier’s jacket, with a rusty sword ; for even the use of 
this melodious little instrument, the delight of the natives, from whose 
nature the dance and the pipe are inseparable, is now strictly pro- 
hibited. None of us had witnessed the dances of these people before 
they were restrained by law; but in that which was exhibited on 
the present occasion, there was nothing at which any unprejudiced 
person could take offence ; and it confirmed the opinion I had often 
heard expressed, that Pomarree, or whoever framed the laws, would 
have more effectually attained his object had these amusements been 
restricted within proper limits, rather than entirely suppressed. To 
some of us, who had formed our opinion of the native dance of this 
island from the fascinating representation of it by Mr. Webber, who 
accompanied Captain Cook, that which we saw greatly disappointed our 
expectation, and we turned from it to listen to the simple airs of the 
females about the queen, w'ho sang very well, and were ready improvi- 
mtrices, 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 im- 
moral condition of the people ; and if he reflected that he was in the 
royal residence, and in the presence of the individual at the liead of 
both church and state, he would have either concluded, as Turnbull did 
many years before, that their intercourse with I’iuropeans had tended to 
debase rather than to exalt their condition, or that they were wilfully 
violating and deriding law^s which they considered ridiculously severe. 
In our intercourse with the chiefs and middle classes of society, 
the impression left by this night’s entertainment wns in some measure 
