Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1854, by HARPER & BROTHERS, In the Clerk's Office for the Southern District of New York. Ta. 36. Bgs. & Co PREFACE. It is with feelings of much diffidence I submit the following pages to a perusal by the public, but it is with the hope that the object at which they aim will be speedily accomplished. Several pamphlets and volumes have already been issued from the press, concerning that most important of all the groups that stud the vast Pacific-the Sandwich Islands. But these facts have not deterred me from making my own observations, and employing my own language. If the present condition of affairs at the Hawaiian Islands augur any thing, there can not but be a good prospect that they will soon form an integral portion of the United States. They are absolutely essential to the protection and advancement of American commerce, and whoever owns them will be master of the Pacific. I have endeavored to portray the condition of things as they appeared to me in 1853, and my only aim has been impartiality, independent of all party consideration. I have taken especial pains to develop the past and present condition of the people, in their various relations, and have endeavored to specify a few reasons for the "ANNEXATION" of that important group of islands. I have drawn extensively from materials furnished CHAPTER VI. Society.-Foreign Officials.-Residents, Foreign and Native.-Ha- waiian Women and Dress.-False Charges refuted.-Population.— Nuuanu Valley.-The Pali of Nuuanu.-Former Battle-ground.— Ride to Diamond Head.-Village of Waikiki.-Remains of a Pa- gan Temple.-Reflections on Paganism.-Leahi, or Diamond Head. -View from the Summit.-The Plains below.-Punch-bowl Hill and its Fortifications.-Panoramic View of Honolulu.—Alia-paa- kai, or Salt Lake.-Curious Theory relating to it.-Testimony of Plains of Kaneohe.-Konahuanui Mountains.-Geological Features. -Probable Formation.-Site of an old Pagan Game.-A Legend.— Missionary Station at Kaneohe.-Christianized Natives.-"Month- ly Concert."-Residence of the Missionary, and Style of Living.— Road along the Sea-shore.-White Man turned Savage.-Singular Coral-reefs.-Fish-ponds.-Women as Laborers.-Driving Hogs to Market. Simplicity of Native Manners, and Domestic Life.-A solitary Grave. -A Hawaiian Patriarch.-Thoughts on early Races.-A Native Judge.-Taro Plantations.-Taro as an article of Road to Ewa-Repairing Roads.-Paahao Labor.-Natives as La- borers.-A Trial of Patience.-Balaam and his Ass.-The Proph- et's Conclusion.-Philosophy of Patience.-A Trial of Speed.-Ewa. -Church and Station.—A Patriarchal Missionary.-Ecclesiastical Discipline. Singular Case of Divorce.-A Night at Ewa.... 124 |