About the year 1870 the late Queen Emma made the tour of the island of Kauai, and at some places the hula was performed as a recreation in her honor. The hula ka-laau was thus presented; it was marked, however, by such peculiarities as to make it hardly recognizable as being the same performance as the one elsewhere known by that name. As given on Kauai, both the olapa and the hoopaa took part, as they do on the [Page 119] other islands, but in the Kauai performance the olapa alone handled the two sticks of the xylophone, which in other parts formed the sole instrument of musical accompaniment to this hula. Other striking novelties also were introduced. The olapa held between their toes small sticks with which they beat upon a resonant beam of wood that lay on the floor, thus producing tones of a low pitch. Another departure from the usual style of this hula was that the hoopaa, at the same time, devoted themselves with the right hand to playing upon the pu-niu, the small drum, while with the left they developed the deep bass of the pahu. The result of this outre combination must have been truly remarkable. It is a matter of observation that on the island of Kauai both the special features of its spoken language and the character of its myths and legends indicate a closer relationship to the groups of the southern Pacific, to which the Hawaiian people owe their origin, than do those of the other islands of the Hawaiian group. [Page 120] XVI.—THE HULA ÍLI-ÍLI The _hula íli-íli_, pebble-dance, was a performance of the classical times, in which, according to one who has witnessed it, the olapa alone took part. The dancers held in each hand a couple of pebbles, _ili-ili_—hence the name of the dance—which they managed to clash against each other, after the fashion of castanets, thus producing a rude music of much the same quality as that elicited from the “bones” in our minstrel performances. According to another witness, the drum also was sometimes used in connection with the pebbles as an accompaniment to this hula. The ili-ili was at times a hula of intensity—that is to say, was acted with that stress of voice and manner which the Hawaiians termed _ai-ha’a_; but it seems to have been more often performed in that quiet natural tone of voice and of manner termed _ko’i-honua_, which may be likened to utterance in low relief. The author can present only the fragment of a song to illustrate this hula: _Mele_