Page:Voyage in search of La Perouse, volume 2 (Stockdale).djvu/173

] at the same time he accompanied it by beating with two little sticks of cassuarina on a bamboo six yards long, cleft throughout its whole length. Three musicians placed before the others expressed the subject of their song by action also, which no doubt they had thoroughly studied, for their gestures were performed all together, and in the same manner. Every now and then they turned toward the king, making not ungraceful motions with their arms: sometimes they bowed their heads quickly, till the chin touched the breast, and shook them several times, &c.

In the mean time Toobou presented the General with some pieces of stuff fabricated with the bark of the paper mulberry tree, causing them to be spread abroad with a great deal of ostentation, that we might be sensible of all the value of the gift.

One of his ministers, who sat on his right hand, ordered kava to be prepared, and presently a wooden bowl, of an oval shape, and a yard long (See Plate XXXI, Fig. 9), was brought in full of this liquor.

The musicians, no doubt, had reserved their choicest pieces for this instant; as now, at every pause they made, the cry of mâli, mâli, resounded from every quarter, and the reiterated applauses