We arose early for a bathe on the coral flats or shoals of the reef, then took gallop before breakfast; and when the trade began its diurnal breeze, and the streets were impassible from dust, we reclined within our thatched castles, enjoying the cooling gusts blowing down the Nuana, or were seated with segars beneath the shelving eaves, regarding the natives grouped near the doorways! They were mostly girls—poor, miserable shameless objects, with diseased, unhealthy complexions, lounging all day in the glaring sun, or clustered, two and three together, sucking poee-poee, smoking pipes, and chatting their soft idiom, low and laughingly; but they had not the grace, nor coy witchery of the charming rustics of Hilo: they were city ladies—in Honolulu, where there is more population, more want, and far more vice!
Before the sun sinks for the day, there is but little wind, and walking or riding is then a pleasureable excitement. There is a circle of agreeable society, too; not alone with foreign merchants and consuls, but with a higher order of diplomatic agents, who, although severed from their homes by thousands of leagues of water, still surround themselves with all the elegancies and enjoyments of social existence which they have known in their native lands. Indeed Oahu, though without the salubrious, agreeable climate of Maui, is still a place of much interest; and from its delightful position, and fine scenery, well worthy of all the commendation that voyagers bestow upon it.
CHAPTER XLIV.
King Kammehamma, or Kamme, as he is familiarly called, is the third of his race: his ancestors were fierce, ungovernable gentlemen, who, in the good old times, clubbed and killed—perhaps ate, too—nobody knows—a great number of their enemies; but without tracing the historic truth of these remote events, it is only necessary to state, that his present majesty has been invested with the purple, and is, to all formal appearances, the chief potentate of the islands.
The government is a complicated piece of political machinery, with a constitution, and masses of subtle laws, equal in magnitude to the huge proportions of a Chinese dictionary. There is a Legislative Assembly of Kanakas, Ministers of State, War, Finance, Solicitors-general, an army, a navy, and a court! This is not half, but it makes one dizzy to think of it all at once: however, on due reflection, it is not quite so complicated an affair after all! The government is simplified by two bosom friends of the King—Mr. Robert Crichton Wyllie, Minister of foreign relations; and Mr. G. P. Judd, Minister of finance. The former is a very clever Scotch gentleman, somewhat inflated with the royal trust reposed in him, and has, moreover, the cathoethes scribendi to a most melancholy and voluminous extent; yet he is an agreeable person, and gives good dinners, and I have not the heart to say a syllable to his disparagement, although I have not had the felicity of testing his cuisine!
But Mr. Judd is the Magnus Apollo of the Island. Kamme, or the Lonely One—as the word signifies—is his puppet, and most particularly lonely he keeps him! The King is Punch, and Judd is Judy, and the Lonely One is jumped about and thumped, and the wires are pulled unremittingly. Judd is his prime counsellor, his parliament, father confessor and ghostly adviser—his temperance lecturer, purse-bearer, and factotum generally. There was a rumor, too, in courtly circles, that an order of nobility was to be established, and then we shall have, probably, Baron Judd, Peer of the Realm and Regent of the Kingdom. One would naturally suppose that a staunch democrat from the Model Republic could not bear the tainted air of a monarchical court in his republican nostrils, But it is wonderful how soon we learn to estimate patriotism at so much per annum, and with what suppleness we can kneel before a throne, if there be dollars hidden beneath the dais. What boots it whether the chair be filled with African or white? We want dollars!
The king was universally liked by the foreigners; for he has, indeed, for a modernized savage, much bonhommie; is a good-hearted, well-meaning person; rather given to conviviality, like all his race, and when permitted to throw off the restraints of the court, he "allows his more austere faculties to become pleasingly relaxed by a little gentle and innocent indulgence." However, these backslidings are of rare occurrence, and when under the argus eyes of his financial adviser, he is never seen to exceed the limits of propriety—eschews ten-pins and tobacco.—sips malt, and devotes his leisure to billiards.
We were to be presented at court! It occupied a number of days to arrange certain punctilio, and finally, without any decided misunderstanding, an hour was fixed for a royal audience.