strange habiliments. The queen wore trowsers and a long bedgown of coloured velveteen; and her friend Leliah, the wife of Boki, something of the same kind; and when Mr. Canning sent to inquire after them, they were found playing whist with a pack of dirty cards, complaining bitterly of the cold, and, on the whole, in a state as far removed as possible not only from regal dignity, but from everything like comfort. The first object, after getting them out of the hands of such a person as Starbuck, was to provide dresses suitable to the climate and the condition of the wearers. The Secretary of State appointed a gentleman to superintend their concerns, to see that all their wants and wishes were supplied, and to show them all the sights of London that could be supposed to afford them gratification-St. Paul's, Westminster Abbey, the theatres, the opera, and the parks. No persons could be more tractable, or adapt themselves with more good temper to the usages of this country than the whole party; their behaviour, whether at home or abroad, was marked by the strictest decorum. It is proper to note that their moderation in the article of food was quite remarkable; what they did eat was chiefly fish, poultry, and fruit, and their favourite beverage was cider.

While thus in the fulness of their enjoyment, and delighted with the flattering reception they met with from the first nobility in the kingdom, one of their attendants was seized with an illness, which proved to be the measles, and in a few days infection extended to the whole party. Boki and his wife, and most of the inferior attendants, soon got well, and went abroad; but no argument could prevail on Leliah to leave the queen, whose illness had begun to take an unfavourable appearance, even for an hour. In the course of a few days every hope of the queen's recovery being abandoned, her husband, still very unwell himself, was apprized of the danger.

'He caused himself to be immediately placed in his arm-chair and wheeled to her apartment: when, being lifted upon her bed and placed by her side, he embraced her affectionately, and they both wept bitterly. He then dismissed the attendants, and they remained for some time alone together. Till then the king was supposed to be recovering ; but it was understood that at this mournful interview these young people had agreed that one should not survive the other. At five o'clock he desired to be conveyed to his own bed, where he lay without speaking, and the queen died about an hour after he left her; that is, about six o'clock in the evening of the Sth July, 1824.

Liliah, whose dutiful and affectionate behaviour to her friend and mistress had been most exemplary, now took charge of her body, and disposed it after the manner of her country, unclothing it to the waist, leaving also the ancles and feet bare, and carefully dressing the hair and adorning it with chaplets of flowers. The king now desired the

body

body might be brought into his apartment, and laid on a small bed near him; that being done, he sat up looking at it, but neither speaking nor weeping. The medical attendants observed, that the state of Riho Riho was such as to render it highly improper to keep the queen's body near him, and it was therefore proposed to him to allow it to be taken away; but he sat silent, and answered no one, only by gestures showing that he forbade its removal. At length, after much persuasion, and then leaving him to himself for a time, he suddenly made signs that it might be taken away, which was accordingly done, and the queen was again placed on her own bed.'-Voyage, p. 66, 67.

From this moment the poor king's disorder rapidly increased; the loss of the queen decided his fate; his spirits sank, his cough increased; and he felt and declared that he should not long survive her. 'We have every reason to believe,' says the bulletin of the physicians who attended him, that his anxiety and depression of mind have aggravated all the symptoms of his disease, which, but for this cause, might ere now have terminated prosperously;' in six days Riho Riho was a corpse. The day previous to his death, he made his will, bequeathing what property he had in England to Boki and his suite generally, and intimating therein a desire that his own body and that of his queen should be conveyed back to their native islands. His Majesty's ship Blonde, commanded by Lord Byron, was appointed for this service. Presents of various kinds were made to the surviving strangers, both by government and private individuals, and the money which had been lodged in the Bank on their arrival was delivered untouched to Boki; and he and his companions purchased with it such articles as were thought agreeable or useful to themselves and their countrymen. Liliah, with her characteristic feeling and propriety, laid out her share in black silks and mourning dresses, to be worn by her friends at home for the late king and queen. A short time before they sailed, the strangers were honoured with an audience of the King, at Windsor, which gave all of them the highest gratification.

The surviving party, consisting of Boki and his wife; Kipahai, the admiral; Kuanoa, the treasurer; and Manuia, the purveyor, left London for Portsmouth on the 22nd September, to embark on board the Blonde. On the 27th November they entered the magnificent harbour of Rio de Janeiro, where the islanders appeared to take great pleasure, mingled with regret, in revisiting the places they had formerly seen in company with their beloved sovereigns. At a dinner given to them by the British Consul, Liliah could not conceal her very affectionate disposition; on entering the room in which, but a year before, a great entertainment had been given to Riho Riho, she burst

into tears, observing, that it seemed as if she saw her lost friends again.' Nothing indeed could exceed the affectionate, the gentle, and docile character of the whole party during the voyage, conforming themselves in their occupations, amusements, and habits, to the officers of the ship, and making themselves perfectly agreeable on all occasions.

While at anchor in Valparaiso bay, Kipahai, the admiral, died suddenly of an abscess which had formed on the brain. His death may be considered as a serious loss to his native country; for he possessed a strong energetic mind, considerably cultivated and improved by his various voyages, two of which were to China. At this place, also, the small-pox broke out among the ship's company, and Lord Byron at once determined to remain where he was till every trace of that destructive malady should have disappeared; owing to which delay, the news of the death of Riho Riho and his queen reached the Sandwich Islands some time before their remains could do so—a circumstance perhaps rather fortunate than otherwise. Boki was the only Christian in the party, but on their passage from Valparaiso towards Owhyhee, Liliah and the other chiefs earnestly desired to be baptised; and as they had previously been instructed in the principles of our holy faith, the chaplain did not hesitate to comply with their entreaty, Lord Byron and the officers standing sponsors.

On the 3d of May, the Blonde came in sight of Owhyhee, and as they approached the shore it was observed that both Boki and Liliah seemed rather depressed than elated by the sight of their native land. This, however, was hardly to be wondered at, considering the different circumstances under which they had left it, and were now returning. Several fishing-boats were speedily alongside the ship, and Liliah, now that her sense of modesty had been awakened by her residence in a civilised country, withdrew to her cabin at the sight of her almost naked countrymen. The visitors soon became numerous, and whenever it was known that Boki and his friends were on board, several of the principal people came off in their boats, and among the rest a chief and his wife, the latter of whom was Boki's sister; a large handsome woman,' says Mr. Bloxam, who, in the native light tappa dress, stepped across the quarter-deck with a stately but unembarrassed air, and taking a chaplet of flowers from her own brows, placed it on Lord Byron's head, as a sign of welcome, and then went below to visit Liliah.' On her return to the deck, this lady appeared completely clothed in an European dress.

When all were ready to proceed to the shore, the whole party were dressed in deep mourning; and on leaving the ship, Boki seemed to be overcome with an extraordinary degree of emotion;

he

6

he observed to Lord Byron, as they were rowing towards the land, that his belly felt as if all was not right.' Thousands of the natives, who had assembled to receive him, prostrated themselves at his feet, and began to moan and bewail for the loss of their king and friend. To add to the solemnity of the occasion, minute-guns were fired from the fort, in honour of the deceased.

'The ceremonial of grief being thus fulfilled, the chiefs, accompanied by our surgeon, proceeded to the residence of Karaimoku, who was too unwell to receive Boki on the beach. The meeting of the brothers was truly affecting. At first they appeared incapable of speech, and then, after a long embrace, they went to the adjoining missionary chapel, and gave thanks for the safe arrival of the long absent chiefs. After this, Boki stood up, and addressed all who had followed into the church; and, having spoken of what he had seen and learned abroad, exhorted them above all things to be diligent in their application to letters and to religion.'-Voyage, pp. 110, 111.

The landing of the bodies, the concourse of people, the funeral procession to the church, which was hung with black on the occasion, and its return to the abode of Karaimoku, the sick regent, are fully described, with an interesting detail of all the circumstances attending this novel scene. On leaving the church,

The procession marched to the same house, belonging to Karaimoku, where we had been received the day after our arrival: it was now entirely hung with black, and a raised platform, over which a low arch was thrown, at one end, was prepared as the resting-place of the remains of the two sovereigns, whom the old man had loved as his children through life, and whose early death has been most grievous to him. He received their bodies standing by a chair covered with black velvet, placed for him close to the platform prepared for them; and prepared as he was for the reception of their remains, he was extremely agitated, and could not restrain his tears. As soon as the coffins were deposited on the platform, the band accompanied some native singers in a funeral hymn, which the missionaries had written, and taught them to sing, to the air of Pleyel's German Hymn. We could not help reflecting on the strange combination of circumstances here before us: every thing native-born and ancient in the isles was passing away: the dead chiefs lay there, hidden in more splendid cerements than their ancestors had ever dreamed of; no bloody sacrifice stained their obsequies, nor was one obscene memorial made to insult the soul as it left its earthly tenement; but instead, there was hope held out of a resurrection to happiness, and the doctrines admitted that had put an end to sacrifice for ever, and pronounced the highest blessing on the highest purity! Where the naked savage only had been seen, the decent clothing of a cultivated people had succeeded, and its adoption, though now occasional, promises permanency at no distant period. Mingled with these willing disciples were the warlike and the noble of the land, the most remote on the globe, teaching, by

their sympathy, the charities that soften yet dignify human nature. The savage yells of brutal orgies were now silenced; and as the solemn sounds were heard for the first time, uniting the instruments of Europe and the composition of a learned musician, to the simple voice of the savage, and words, not indeed harsh in themselves, framed into verse by the industry and piety of the teachers from a remote nation, came upon the ear, it was impossible not to feel a sensation approaching to awe, as the marvellous and rapid change a few years have produced was called up to the mind.'-Voyage, pp. 128-130.

These and all Mr. Bloxam's reflections on this melancholy occasion are exceedingly just :

'An event (he proceeds) so singular in the history of the world as this is, will deserve every detail which can be given; but first we may consider the extraordinary fate of these young people. Born in a country which had been for ages concealed by the ocean from the rest of the world, and which had only in the reign of their grandfather been made known to the civilized part of mankind, they were nurtured among the ignorance and superstitions of barbarism itself. The transcendant qualities of their father, a conqueror and legislator, had alone opened to their country a prospect of rising to a station among the cultivated nations of the earth. Yet, young as they were, untrained by scholarship or example, they had broken down the barriers of superstition, paved the way for laws and true religion, introduced letters, and, in hopes of benefiting their country, and securing the alliance and protection of the state which they esteemed most likely and most able to guard them, yet leave them free to improve, and not oppress them, they had undertaken no less a voyage than half the circle of the globe, and had died in that foreign land-surrounded, indeed, by affectionate attendants of their own nation, yet anxious for their distant people, and grieving that they had only half accomplished the object of their heroic expedition. Perhaps the perfect faith reposed in the English by the people of the islands is the strongest proof that ever could be given by a whole nation of simple-mindedness and freedom from guile. There was not a moment's irritation, not a moment's suspicion that unfair means had been used to shorten their days; and we were received as brothers who would sympathize with their grief, and as friends who would be glad to heal their wounds.'-Voyage, pp. 124, 125.

When Tamehameha died, all chiefs, according to custom, had a tooth or two broken out of their head to commemorate the event. 'Our friend Boki,' says Mr. Bloxam, had four of his front teeth sacrificed on that occasion; and the operation must have been severe; he was laid on his back and his mouth filled with tapa; a sharp instrument was placed at the root of the teeth, and at one blow they were all knocked out at once.' The ladies, on the same occasion, tattooed the tips of their tongues, as was always the custom in memory of their departed friends. On the present melancholy occasion no such sacrifices or ceremonies

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were