SANDWICH ISLANDS. 
143 
that nothing but the resolution of Tamehameha to cultivate 
the friendship of the English, under all and any circum¬ 
stances, can account for the hospitality that has been, with 
this exception, so uniformly exercised towards us. 
On returning from our examination of the fatal valley, 
we found a great concourse of people assembled in honour 
of our arrival, and prepared to entertain us with the liura 
hura, or national dance. 
We were seated on mats in front of the dancers, who 
were twenty-five young girls disposed in five rows. Their 
dresses consisted each of two pieces of fine tapa; the under 
piece, dyed yellow, fell only to the knee in full and graceful 
folds; the upper tapa was green, arranged in festoons, and 
confined to the waist by a broad band of the same. The 
heads of the dancers were adorned with chaplets of flowers, 
and their arms and legs with network, to which dogs’ teeth 
were loosely attached, so as to rattle and produce an effect 
not unlike that of the castanet in the dance. 
On either side of us sat two old men holding large cala¬ 
bashes, on which they beat time with the palms of their 
hands to the dance and to a slow song which accompanied 
it. The dance itself consisted of various and ever-changing 
motions of the limbs and body, without moving farther from 
the spot than a single step forwards, backwards, to the right 
