lay in state; and was then placed in a coffin on which the following words were inscribed:-

TAMEHAMALU,

QUEEN OF THE SANDWICH ISLANDS,

DEPARTED THIS LIFE IN LONDON,

ON THE 8TH JULY, 1824,

AGED 22 YEARS.

At the same time, and within the distance of half a mile, there was also lying in state a noble of England ; one who had achieved greatness beside the greatness he inherited. In the coffin of George Gordon, Lord Byron, the hand which had written lines of fire was lying motionless and lifeless at his side; and thousands of his countrymen went to view the hearse of him who had so long stirred their souls with his song. Death had been precipitate with his two victims;-a queen of two-andtwenty; a poet of thirty-seven. Lord Byron's body lay at Sir Edward Knatchbull's house, in Great George Street. The circumstance is mentioned here, from the coincidence by which the successor to his title, Captain, afterwards Admiral, Lord Byron, was commissioned to carry back the remains of the King and Queen of Hawaii to their native soil in the 'Blonde' frigate.

Owing to the death of Kamamalu the King became so depressed, that the partial recovery he had made was lost, and he too sank. After much severe suffering he breathed his last on the 14th. The event is thus described by the Court newsman of the day. It is our painful task to record, this day, the dissolution of the King of the Sandwich Islands; which took place yesterday morning, at 4 o'clock precisely, at the Clarendon Hotel, Robert Street, Adelphi.'*

*The Times, 15th July, 1824.

DEATH OF THE KING AND QUEEN.

209

The same paper shortly afterwards gives an account of the lying in state of the deceased King: how the room was hung with feather tippets, and the regal war-cloak of spotless yellow plumes was displayed; and from large china vases, draped with white linen, rose many wax lights; a semi-barbaric but impressive scene, with the dark-skinned friends and attendants of dead royalty, in silent grief, filling the chamber.

Every attention and care had been paid to the sufferers. 'The King sent his own physicians, and the Duke of York his surgeon, and everything that England produced was at our command.'*

The following is the inscription on the coffin:

6

KAMEHAMEHA II.

KING OF THE SANDWICH ISLANDS,

DIED JULY 14, 1824,

IN THE 28TH YEAR OF HIS AGE.

MAY WE REMEMBER OUR BELOVED

KING IOLANI.†

The Blonde' sailed from Portsmouth on the 28th of September, carrying the remains of the King and Queen, and those of the retinue who survived. Before the latter left England, the King granted them an interview at Windsor. He received the little suite with his accustomed courtesy, and showed them more than accustomed kindness; promising protection to their islands, in case any other power was disposed to encroach upon their sovereignty. Mr. Canning frequently conversed with them. All expenses whilst the Hawaiians were in England were defrayed by the Government.

On the voyage home, at Valparaiso, another of their

* Rives's Letter to the Prime Minister.

A name by which he liked to be called by his intimate friends.

P

number died, Kapihi, the commander of the King's ships. Kekuanaoa the treasurer, and Liliha, Boki's wife, were baptized by the chaplain of the ship, Lord Byron standing sponsor. On the 4th of May, 1825, the

'Blonde' reached Lahaina. It is not our intention to enter into a description of the poignant grief with which, here and at Honolulu, a highly demonstrative nation greeted the funeral vessel. At Lahaina, the wail of the multitude, as they lifted up their voices and wept, echoed over the hills, and drowned the roar of the surf. Wild sorrow had always been displayed at the death of their kings and chiefs, although in so many cases they were hard oppressors. The Scythians wept at the birth. of a child: it seems more unaccountable that the Hawaiians should have grieved so greatly at the death of those who often lorded it over them with tyrannical insolence, but it was so.

The funeral obsequies took place at Honolulu. No longer were the remains of the royal pair to be concealed, or carried to some open heiau, where grinning hideous idols kept watch upon the massy walls; but amidst pious orgies, pious airs,' and attended with. 'decent sorrow, decent prayers,' those earthly relics were borne in a Christian procession, received in a chapel hung with black, and consigned to their long silence with religious services. The coffins were drawn. on two cars surmounted by rich canopies of black, each of which was moved by forty of the inferior chiefs. The young King and his sister were followed by Lord Byron and the English Consul. Lines of soldiers extended half a mile, from the fort to the chapel, and the officers, band, and marines of the did the foreign residents. A hundred seamen of the frigate, in uniform, closed the procession. Of all the

Blonde,' walked in files, as

A CHRISTIAN FUNERAL.

*

211

mourners, none felt more poignantly, than the veteran chief Kalaimoku, the prime minister. He had loved Kaméhaméha the warrior, and he had transferred his love to his king's offspring." Now he saw them carried, young, to the grave:-hence those tears, which flowed freely down the old man's cheeks in spite of all his efforts to control them.

* Kamamalu was the daughter of Kaméhaméha, though not the uterine sister of Liholiho.

CHAPTER XIV.

HISTORICAL SKETCH-THE BROOK BECOMES A STREAMAN APOSTOLIC PREFECT ARRIVES THE ARGONAUTS.

DURING

URING the expedition to England, several changes had occurred in the islands. Old things were passing away. At Kailua, the memorable scene of the last battle between idolatry and the iconoclasts, a place of Christian worship had been erected, in which the average attendance each Sunday was eight hundred persons. Kapiolani had become a Christian, dismissed all her husbands except Naihe, and had thoroughly adopted the habits of civilized life. This is the female chief who descended the crater of Kilauea. She died in 1841. The ex-King of Kauai died in 1824, also a convert, and a sincere one, to the new faith. He bequeathed his possessions to Liholiho. Keeaumoku, Kaméhaméha's old warrior, and Governor of Kauai, was also dead a short time previous to the decease of the sovereign of that island. His powerful grasp of the government having ceased, the Kauaians, on learning the death of their late king, threw off restraint, and renewed many heathen practices. It cannot be a matter of surprise that the echoes of heathenism would still return at first, although the body of paganism was removed. They would be fainter, and only heard under favouring circumstances; but in the present case they