The Hawaiian Archipelago - Six Months Among The Palm Groves, Coral Reefs, And Volcanoes Of The Sandwich Islands By Isabella L. Bird
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It Is A
Very Pretty Two-Storied Frame Building, With Deep Double Verandahs,
And Stands On A Large Lawn Of Fine Manienie Grass, {199} With Roads
On Three Sides.
Long before ten, crowds had gathered outside the
low walls of the lawn, natives and foreigners galloped in all
Directions, boats and canoes enlivened the bay, bands played, and
the foreigners, on this occasion rather a disregarded minority,
assembled in holiday dress in the upper verandah of the court-house.
Hawaiian flags on tall bamboos decorated the little gateways which
gave admission to the lawn, an enormous standard on the government
flagstaff could be seen for miles, and the stars and stripes waved
from the neighbouring plantations and from several houses in Hilo.
At ten punctually, Lunalilo, Governor Lyman, the sheriff of Hawaii,
the royal chamberlain, and the adjutant-general, walked up to the
court-house, and the king took his place, standing in the lower
verandah with his suite about him. All the foreigners were either
on the upper balcony, or on the stairs leading to it, on which, to
get the best possible view of the spectacle, I stood for three
mortal hours. The attendant gentlemen were well dressed, but wore
"shocking bad hats;" and the king wore a sort of shooting suit, a
short brown cut-away coat, an ash-coloured waistcoat and ash-
coloured trousers with a blue stripe. He stood bareheaded. He
dressed in this style in order that the natives might attend the
reception in every-day dress, and not run the risk of spoiling their
best clothes by Hilo torrents. The dress of the king and his
attendants was almost concealed by wreaths of ohia blossoms and
festoons of maile, some of them two yards long, which had been
thrown over them, and which bestowed a fantastic glamour on the
otherwise prosaic inelegance of their European dress. But indeed
the spectacle, as a whole, was altogether poetical, as it was an
ebullition of natural, national, human feeling, in which the heart
had the first place. I very soon ceased to notice the incongruous
elements, which were supplied chiefly by the Americans present.
There were Republicans by birth and nature, destitute of traditions
of loyalty or reverence for aught on earth; who bore on their faces
not only republicanism, but that quintessence of puritan
republicanism which hails from New England; and these were subjects
of a foreign king, nay, several of them office-holders who had taken
the oath of allegiance, and from whose lips "His Majesty, Your
Majesty," flowed far more copiously than from ours which are "to the
manner born."
On the king's appearance, the cheering was tremendous, - regular
British cheering, well led, succeeded by that which is not British,
"three cheers and a tiger," but it was "Hi, hi, hi, hullah!" Every
hat was off, every handkerchief in air, tears in many eyes,
enthusiasm universal, for the people were come to welcome the king
of their choice; the prospective restorer of the Constitution
"trampled upon" by Kamehameha V., "the kind chief," who was making
them welcome to his presence after the fashion of their old feudal
lords.
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