From His High Resolves And Generous Instincts Much Was Expected, And The Unhappy Failing, To Which, After The Most Painful

Struggles, he succumbed, on the solicitation of some bad or thoughtless foreigners, if it lessened him aught in the public

Esteem, abated nothing of the wonderful love that was felt for him.

He died, after a lingering illness, on February 3, 1874. Although the event had been expected for some time, its announcement was received with profound sorrow by the whole community, while the native subjects of the deceased sovereign, according to ancient custom, expressed their feelings in loud wailing, which echoed mournfully through the still, red air of early daylight. On the following evening the body was placed on a shrouded bier, and was escorted in solemn procession by the government officials and the late king's staff, to the Iolani Palace, there to lie in state. It was a cloudless moonlight; not a leaf stirred or bird sang, and the crowd, consisting of several thousands, opened to the right and left to let the dismal death-train pass, in a stillness which was only broken by the solemn tramp of the bearers.

The next day the corpse lay in state, in all the splendour that the islands could bestow, dressed in the clothes the king wore when he took the oath of office, and resting on the royal robe of yellow feathers, a fathom square. {468} Between eight and ten thousand persons passed through the palace during the morning, and foreigners as well as natives wept tears of genuine grief; while in the palace grounds the wailing knew no intermission, and many of the natives spent hours in reciting kanakaus in honour of the deceased.

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