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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Next In Interest To This Procession Of Beaming Faces, And The Blaze
Of Colour, Was The Sight Of The Presents, And The Ungrudging
Generosity With Which They Were Brought.
Many of the women
presented live fowls tied by the legs, which were deposited, one
upon another, till they formed a fainting, palpitating heap under
the hot sun.
Some of the men brought decorated hogs tied by one
leg, which squealed so persistently in the presence of royalty, that
they were removed to the rear. Hundreds carried nets of sweet
potatoes, eggs, and kalo, artistically arranged. Men staggered
along in couples with bamboos between them, supporting clusters of
bananas weighing nearly a hundredweight. Others brought yams,
cocoa-nuts, oranges, onions, pumpkins, early pineapples, and even
the great delicious granadilla, the fruit of the large passion-
flower. A few maidens presented the king with bouquets of choice
flowers, and costly leis of the yellow feathers of the Melithreptes
Pacifica. There were fully two tons of kalo and sweet potatoes in
front of the court house, hundreds of fowls, and piles of bananas,
eggs, and cocoa-nuts. The hookupu was a beautiful sight, all the
more so that not one of that radiant, loving, gift-offering throng
came in quest of office, or for any other thing that he could
obtain. It was just the old-time spirit of reverence for the man
who typifies rule, blended with the extreme of personal devotion to
the prince whom a united people had placed upon the throne.
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