On the eighteenth of January, 1778, Captain Cook, the great navigator, while sailing due north from the Society Islands, discovered the Islands of Oahu and Kauai. The next day he landed at Waimea, Kauai, where he held friendly intercourse with the natives, and afterwards laid in supplies at Niihau. He finally sailed for Alaska, Feb. 2d. The Hawaiians looked upon him as an incarnation of the god Lono, and upon his crew as supernatural beings. Returning from the Arctic the following winter, he anchored in Kealakekua bay, January 17th, 1779.
Here he received divine honors and was loaded with munificent presents of the best that the islands could produce. By his rash and arbitrary conduct, however, he involved himself in an affray with the natives, in which he was killed on February 14th, 1779.
The spot where he fell is now marked by an appropriate monument.
LUNALILO HOME, FOR AGED HAWAIIANS.
KAMEHAMEHA SCHOOL.