I
still
quote
from
my journal: I found
the
national
Legislature
to
consist
of
half
a
dozen
white
men
and
some
thirty
or
forty
natives.
It
was
a dark assemblage.
The
nobles
and
Ministers
(about a
dozen
of
them
altogether) occupied
the
extreme
left
of
the
hall,
with
David Kalakaua (the
King's
Chamberlain)
and
Prince
William
at
the
head.
The
President
of
the
Assembly,
His
Royal
Highness
M. Kekuanaoa, [Kekuanaoa
is
not
of
the
blood royal.
He
derives
his
princely rank
from
his
wife,
who
was
a
daughter
of
Kamehameha
the
Great.
Under
other
monarchies
the
male
line
takes
precedence
of
the
female
in
tracing
genealogies,
but
here
the
opposite
is
the
case—the
female
line
takes
precedence.
Their
reason
for
this
is
exceedingly sensible,
and
I
recommend
it
to
the
aristocracy
of
Europe:
They
say
it
is
easy
to
know
who
a man's mother was, but, etc., etc.]
and
the
Vice
President
(the
latter
a
white
man,) sat
in
the
pulpit,
if
I
may
so
term it.
The
President
is
the
King's
father.
He
is
an
erect,
strongly
built,
massive
featured, white-haired,
tawny
old
gentleman
of
eighty
years
of
age
or
thereabouts.
He
was
simply
but
well
dressed,
in
a blue
cloth
coat
and
white
vest,
and
white
pantaloons,
without
spot, dust
or
blemish
upon
them.
He
bears
himself
with
a calm, stately dignity,
and
is
a
man
of
noble
presence.
He
was
a
young
man
and
a distinguished
warrior
under
that
terrific
fighter, Kamehameha I.,
more
than
half
a
century
ago. A
knowledge
of
his
career
suggested
some
such
thought
as
this: "This man,
naked
as
the
day
he
was
born,
and
war-club
and
spear
in
hand, has
charged
at
the
head
of
a
horde
of
savages against
other
hordes
of
savages
more
than
a
generation
and
a
half
ago,
and
reveled
in
slaughter
and
carnage; has worshipped
wooden
images
on
his
devout
knees; has
seen
hundreds
of
his
race
offered
up
in
heathen
temples
as
sacrifices
to
wooden
idols,
at
a time
when
no
missionary's
foot
had
ever
pressed
this
soil,
and
he
had
never
heard
of
the
white
man's God; has
believed
his
enemy
could
secretly
pray
him
to
death; has
seen
the
day,
in
his
childhood,
when
it
was
a
crime
punishable
by
death
for
a
man
to
eat
with
his
wife,
or
for
a
plebeian
to
let
his
shadow
fall
upon
the
King—and
now
look
at
him;
an
educated Christian;
neatly
and
handsomely dressed; a high-minded,
elegant
gentleman; a traveler,
in
some
degree,
and
one
who
has been
the
honored
guest
of
royalty
in
Europe; a
man
practiced
in
holding
the
reins
of
an
enlightened government,
and
well
versed
in
the
politics
of
his
country
and
in
general,
practical
information.
Look
at
him, sitting
there
presiding
over
the
deliberations
of
a legislative body,
among
whom
are
white
men—a grave, dignified, statesmanlike personage,
and
as
seemingly
natural
and
fitted
to
the
place
as
if
he
had been
born
in
it
and
had
never
been
out
of
it
in
his
life
time.
How
the
experiences
of
this
old
man's eventful
life
shame
the
cheap
inventions
of
romance!"
The
christianizing
of
the
natives
has
hardly
even
weakened
some
of
their
barbarian
superstitions,
much
less
destroyed
them. I
have
just
referred
to
one
of
these.
It
is
still
a
popular
belief
that
if
your
enemy
can
get
hold
of
any
article
belonging
to
you
he
can
get
down
on
his
knees
over
it
and
pray
you
to
death.
Therefore
many
a
native
gives
up
and
dies
merely
because
he
imagines
that
some
enemy
is
putting
him
through
a
course
of
damaging
prayer.
This
praying
an
individual
to
death
seems
absurd
enough
at
a
first
glance,
but
then
when
we
call
to
mind
some
of
the
pulpit
efforts
of
certain
of
our
own
ministers
the
thing
looks
plausible.
In
former
times,
among
the
Islanders,
not
only
a
plurality
of
wives
was
customary,
but
a
plurality
of
husbands likewise.
Some
native
women
of
noble
rank had
as
many
as
six
husbands. A
woman
thus
supplied
did
not
reside
with
all
her
husbands
at
once,
but
lived
several
months
with
each
in
turn.
An
understood
sign
hung
at
her
door
during
these
months.
When
the
sign
was
taken down,
it
meant "NEXT."
In
those
days
woman
was
rigidly
taught
to
"know
her
place."
Her
place
was
to
do
all
the
work,
take
all
the
cuffs,
provide
all
the
food,
and
content
herself
with
what
was
left
after
her
lord had finished
his
dinner.
She
was
not
only
forbidden,
by
ancient
law,
and
under
penalty
of
death,
to
eat
with
her
husband
or
enter
a canoe,
but
was
debarred,
under
the
same
penalty,
from
eating
bananas, pine-apples,
oranges
and
other
choice
fruits
at
any
time
or
in
any
place.
She
had
to
confine
herself
pretty strictly
to
"poi"
and
hard
work.
These
poor
ignorant
heathen
seem
to
have
had a
sort
of
groping
idea
of
what
came
of
woman
eating
fruit
in
the
garden
of
Eden,
and
they
did
not
choose
to
take
any
more
chances.
But
the
missionaries
broke
up
this
satisfactory
arrangement
of
things.
They
liberated
woman
and
made
her
the
equal
of
man.
The
natives
had a romantic
fashion
of
burying
some
of
their
children
alive
when
the
family
became larger
than
necessary.
The
missionaries
interfered
in
this
matter
too,
and
stopped it.
To
this
day
the
natives
are
able
to
lie
down
and
die
whenever
they
want
to,
whether
there
is
anything
the
matter
with
them
or
not.
If
a Kanaka
takes
a
notion
to
die,
that
is
the
end
of
him;
nobody
can
persuade
him
to
hold
on;
all
the
doctors
in
the
world
could
not
save him. A
luxury
which
they
enjoy
more
than
anything
else,
is
a
large
funeral.
If
a
person
wants
to
get
rid
of
a troublesome native,
it
is
only
necessary
to
promise
him
a
fine
funeral
and
name
the
hour
and
he
will
be
on
hand
to
the
minute—at
least
his
remains
will.
All
the
natives
are
Christians, now,
but
many
of
them
still
desert
to
the
Great
Shark
God
for
temporary
succor
in
time
of
trouble.
An
irruption
of
the
great
volcano
of
Kilauea,
or
an
earthquake,
always
brings
a
deal
of
latent
loyalty
to
the
Great
Shark
God
to
the
surface.
It
is
common
report
that
the
King, educated,
cultivated
and
refined
Christian
gentleman
as
he
undoubtedly is,
still
turns
to
the
idols
of
his
fathers
for
help
when
disaster
threatens. A planter
caught
a shark,
and
one
of
his
christianized
natives
testified
his
emancipation
from
the
thrall
of
ancient
superstition
by
assisting
to
dissect
the
shark
after
a
fashion
forbidden
by
his
abandoned creed.
But
remorse
shortly
began
to
torture him.
He
grew
moody
and
sought
solitude; brooded
over
his
sin,
refused
food,
and
finally said
he
must
die
and
ought
to
die,
for
he
had
sinned
against
the
Great
Shark
God
and
could
never
know
peace
any
more.
He
was
proof
against
persuasion
and
ridicule,
and
in
the
course
of
a
day
or
two
took
to
his
bed
and
died, although
he
showed
no
symptom
of
disease.
His
young
daughter
followed
his
lead
and
suffered
a
like
fate
within
the
week.
Superstition
is
ingrained
in
the
native
blood
and
bone
and
it
is
only
natural
that
it
should
crop
out
in
time
of
distress. Wherever
one
goes
in
the
Islands,
he
will
find small
piles
of
stones
by
the
wayside, covered
with
leafy offerings,
placed
there
by
the
natives
to
appease
evil
spirits
or
honor
local
deities
belonging
to
the
mythology
of
former
days.
In
the
rural
districts
of
any
of
the
Islands,
the
traveler hourly
comes
upon
parties
of
dusky maidens bathing
in
the
streams
or
in
the
sea
without
any
clothing
on
and
exhibiting
no
very
intemperate
zeal
in
the
matter
of
hiding
their
nakedness.
When
the
missionaries
first
took
up
their
residence
in
Honolulu,
the
native
women
would
pay
their
families
frequent
friendly
visits,
day
by
day,
not
even
clothed
with
a blush.
It
was
found a
hard
matter
to
convince
them
that
this
was
rather
indelicate. Finally
the
missionaries
provided
them
with
long,
loose
calico robes,
and
that
ended
the
difficulty—for
the
women
would
troop
through
the
town,
stark
naked,
with
their
robes
folded
under
their
arms,
march
to
the
missionary
houses
and
then
proceed
to
dress!—
The
natives
soon
manifested
a
strong
proclivity
for
clothing,
but
it
was
shortly
apparent
that
they
only
wanted
it
for
grandeur.
The
missionaries
imported a
quantity
of
hats, bonnets,
and
other
male
and
female
wearing apparel,
instituted
a
general
distribution,
and
begged
the
people
not
to
come
to
church naked,
next
Sunday,
as
usual.
And
they
did
not;
but
the
national
spirit
of
unselfishness led
them
to
divide
up
with
neighbors
who
were
not
at
the
distribution,
and
next
Sabbath
the
poor
preachers
could
hardly
keep
countenance
before
their
vast
congregations.
In
the
midst
of
the
reading
of
a
hymn
a brown, stately
dame
would
sweep
up
the
aisle
with
a
world
of
airs,
with
nothing
in
the
world
on
but
a "stovepipe"
hat
and
a pair
of
cheap
gloves;
another
dame
would
follow,
tricked
out
in
a man's shirt,
and
nothing
else;
another
one
would
enter
with
a flourish,
with
simply
the
sleeves
of
a
bright
calico dress
tied
around
her
waist
and
the
rest
of
the
garment
dragging
behind
like
a peacock's tail
off
duty; a stately "buck" Kanaka
would
stalk
in
with
a woman's
bonnet
on,
wrong
side
before—only this,
and
nothing
more;
after
him
would
stride
his
fellow,
with
the
legs
of
a pair
of
pantaloons
tied
around
his
neck,
the
rest
of
his
person
untrammeled;
in
his
rear
would
come
another
gentleman simply
gotten
up
in
a
fiery
neck-tie
and
a
striped
vest.
The
poor
creatures
were
beaming
with
complacency
and
wholly
unconscious
of
any
absurdity
in
their
appearance.
They
gazed
at
each
other
with
happy
admiration,
and
it
was
plain
to
see
that
the
young
girls
were
taking
note
of
what
each
other
had on,
as
naturally
as
if
they
had
always
lived
in
a
land
of
Bibles
and
knew
what
churches
were
made
for;
here
was
the
evidence
of
a
dawning
civilization.
The
spectacle
which
the
congregation
presented
was
so
extraordinary
and
withal
so
moving,
that
the
missionaries
found
it
difficult
to
keep
to
the
text
and
go
on
with
the
services;
and
by
and
by
when
the
simple
children
of
the
sun
began a
general
swapping
of
garments
in
open
meeting
and
produced
some
irresistibly
grotesque
effects
in
the
course
of
re-dressing,
there
was
nothing
for
it
but
to
cut
the
thing
short
with
the
benediction
and
dismiss
the
fantastic
assemblage.
In
our
country, children
play
"keep house;"
and
in
the
same
high-sounding
but
miniature
way
the
grown
folk
here,
with
the
poor
little
material
of
slender
territory
and
meagre
population,
play
"empire."
There
is
his
royal
Majesty
the
King,
with
a
New
York
detective's
income
of
thirty
or
thirty-five
thousand
dollars
a
year
from
the
"royal
civil
list"
and
the
"royal domain."
He
lives
in
a two-story
frame
"palace."
And
there
is
the
"royal family"—the
customary
hive
of
royal brothers, sisters,
cousins
and
other
noble
drones
and
vagrants
usual
to
monarchy,—all
with
a spoon
in
the
national
pap-dish,
and
all
bearing
such
titles
as
his
or
her
Royal
Highness
the
Prince
or
Princess
So-and-so.
Few
of
them
can
carry
their
royal
splendors
far
enough
to
ride
in
carriages, however;
they
sport
the
economical Kanaka
horse
or
"hoof it"
with
the
plebeians.
Then
there
is
his
Excellency
the
"royal Chamberlain"—a sinecure,
for
his
majesty
dresses
himself
with
his
own
hands,
except
when
he
is
ruralizing
at
Waikiki
and
then
he
requires
no
dressing.
Next
we
have
his
Excellency
the
Commander-in-chief
of
the
Household Troops,
whose
forces
consist
of
about
the
number
of
soldiers usually
placed
under
a
corporal
in
other
lands.
Next
comes
the
royal
Steward
and
the
Grand
Equerry
in
Waiting—high dignitaries
with
modest
salaries
and
little
to
do.
Then
we
have
his
Excellency
the
First
Gentleman
of
the
Bed-chamber—an
office
as
easy
as
it
is
magnificent.
Next
we
come
to
his
Excellency
the
Prime Minister, a
renegade
American
from
New
Hampshire,
all
jaw, vanity,
bombast
and
ignorance, a
lawyer
of
"shyster" calibre, a
fraud
by
nature, a
humble
worshipper
of
the
sceptre
above
him, a
reptile
never
tired
of
sneering
at
the
land
of
his
birth
or
glorifying
the
ten-acre
kingdom
that
has
adopted
him—salary, $4,000 a year,
vast
consequence,
and
no
perquisites.
Then
we
have
his
Excellency
the
Imperial
Minister
of
Finance,
who
handles
a
million
dollars
of
public
money
a year,
sends
in
his
annual "budget"
with
great
ceremony, talks
prodigiously
of
"finance,"
suggests
imposing schemes
for
paying
off
the
"national debt" (of $150,000,)
and
does
it
all
for
$4,000 a
year
and
unimaginable glory.
Next
we
have
his
Excellency
the
Minister
of
War,
who
holds
sway
over
the
royal armies—they
consist
of
two
hundred
and
thirty
uniformed Kanakas,
mostly
Brigadier
Generals,
and
if
the
country
ever
gets
into
trouble
with
a
foreign
power
we
shall
probably
hear
from
them. I
knew
an
American
whose
copper-plate
visiting
card
bore
this
impressive legend: "Lieutenant-Colonel
in
the
Royal Infantry."
To
say
that
he
was
proud
of
this
distinction
is
stating
it
but
tamely.
The
Minister
of
War
has
also
in
his
charge
some
venerable
swivels
on
Punch-Bowl
Hill
wherewith royal salutes
are
fired
when
foreign
vessels
of
war
enter
the
port.
Next
comes
his
Excellency
the
Minister
of
the
Navy—a
nabob
who
rules
the
"royal fleet," (a steam-tug
and
a sixty-ton schooner.)
And
next
comes
his
Grace
the
Lord
Bishop
of
Honolulu,
the
chief
dignitary
of
the
"Established Church"—for
when
the
American
Presbyterian
missionaries
had completed
the
reduction
of
the
nation
to
a compact condition
of
Christianity,
native
royalty
stepped
in
and
erected
the
grand
dignity
of
an
"Established (Episcopal) Church"
over
it,
and
imported a
cheap
ready-made
Bishop
from
England
to
take
charge.
The
chagrin
of
the
missionaries
has
never
been
comprehensively
expressed,
to
this
day,
profanity
not
being admissible.
Next
comes
his
Excellency
the
Minister
of
Public Instruction. Next,
their
Excellencies
the
Governors
of
Oahu, Hawaii, etc.,
and
after
them
a string
of
High
Sheriffs
and
other
small
fry
too
numerous
for
computation.
Then
there
are
their
Excellencies
the
Envoy
Extraordinary
and
Minister
Plenipotentiary
of
his
Imperial
Majesty
the
Emperor
of
the
French;
her
British
Majesty's Minister;
the
Minister
Resident,
of
the
United States;
and
some
six
or
eight
representatives
of
other
foreign
nations,
all
with
sounding
titles, imposing
dignity
and
prodigious
but
economical state.
Imagine
all
this
grandeur
in
a play-house "kingdom"
whose
population
falls
absolutely
short
of
sixty
thousand
souls!
The
people
are
so
accustomed
to
nine-jointed titles
and
colossal
magnates
that
a
foreign
prince
makes
very
little
more
stir
in
Honolulu
than
a
Western
Congressman
does
in
New
York.
And
let
it
be
borne
in
mind
that
there
is
a strictly
defined
"court costume"
of
so
"stunning" a
nature
that
it
would
make
the
clown
in
a
circus
look
tame
and
commonplace
by
comparison;
and
each
Hawaiian
official
dignitary has a
gorgeous
vari-colored, gold-laced uniform
peculiar
to
his
office—no
two
of
them
are
alike,
and
it
is
hard
to
tell
which
one
is
the
"loudest."
The
King
had a "drawing-room"
at
stated
intervals,
like
other
monarchs,
and
when
these
varied uniforms
congregate
there—weak-eyed
people
have
to
contemplate
the
spectacle
through
smoked
glass.
Is
there
not
a
gratifying
contrast
between
this
latter-day
exhibition
and
the
one
the
ancestors
of
some
of
these
magnates
afforded
the
missionaries
the
Sunday
after
the
old-time
distribution
of
clothing?
Behold
what
religion
and
civilization
have
wrought!