At three, P.M., on the fourth of January, a rock was reported from the mast-head, eight leagues from us. It proved to be Ballard's Island, as it is called. At eight on the following morning, we passed within two hundred yards of it. It is about two or three hundred yards in circumference, and rises two hundred feet from the sea. On one side it has a considerable inclination, where seals had crawled up, and several were basking in the sun, almost to the very top. Large flocks of birds were perched upon its ragged sides, or wending their flight around it. Not the least sign of vegetation was any where to be seen. Near its base, was a small rock, from ten to twenty feet above the water level. Ballard's Rock rises in three equi-distant peaks, the centre of which is the highest, and all of them, to the very base, are white with bird-lime. A high surf breaks all around it. Our observations placed it in north latitude, twenty-five degrees two minuses; west longitude, one hundred and sixty-seven degrees fifty minutes.
On the evening of January the fifth, the weather became squally, with constant flashes of lightning and distant thunder. From south to west, and N.W., the heavens were obscured with a heavy black cloud, which rose with great rapidity. We furled all sail. When the cloud ascended our zenith, it became perfectly calm, and a roaring was heard in the air for several minutes, like that of wind through the tops of pines, when hail-stones of an unusual size began to fall upon our deck, accompanied with very sharp lightning and heavy thunder. The hail was of short duration, and passed over without a breath of wind.
The nearest of the Sandwich Group was Bird Island, for which we steered, and on the ninth of January, at eight in the morning (having the preceding night been enveloped in fog) it was discovered close to us. We tacked and stood close in with the south-west side, where was a small sand-beach, fifty to a hundred yards long.
The captain, taking the Globe's whale-boat, went in shore to fish, but seeing a few seal upon the sand beach, was induced to land. It soon afterwards became squally and blew with great violence. The surf upon the beach rose with the wind, and, when the captain, after a short examination of the island, attempted to return, he found it impossible to launch his boat through the surf, and was reduced to the necessity of passing the night upon the island. It blew a gale and rained in torrents all night. The captain and his boat's crew took shelter in a cavern upon the sea-shore, where they had not been long by a comfortable fire they had made, when, by the rising of the tide the sea broke in upon them, and they with difficulty escaped to the side of the rocks, and thence upon the sand-beach. The island was high and almost perpendicular, and with the floods that fell and rushed down its steep sides, rocks of a large size were disengaged from their beds, and came tumbling down in every direction, to the great peril of the captain and his boat's crew, sufficiently uncomfortable from the torrents of water that were falling and driving upon the gale. After a little search, they found an asylum in a cave at the side of a mountain, where they passed the night. In the morning, when they ascended the mountain, the schooner was no where to be seen. It was high and steep, and she had beat up within a few miles of the island and passed their line of sight. Their disappointment and chagrin was inexpressible, supposing, from the schooner's not being in sight, she had been driven off, and that it would be a considerable time before she could return, and afford them that relief their situation so much required, being very much fatigued and exhausted from their exposure. At day-light, the weather cleared and the wind moderated. We beat up and hove to off the sand-beach nearly as soon as the boat we had sent with refreshments.
When the captain saw the schooner approaching close in with the island, he made a last effort to launch his boat. They succeeded in getting her into the breakers, but the first heavy roller that broke under them severed the boat amid-ships, and the captain upon one end of her and a man that could not swim on the other, were hove up safely on the beach by the succeeding wave. The rest of the boat's crew were good swimmers, and also landed in safety. Our boat was not far off when this occurred, and anchoring as near as possible to the shore, the men, all but one, swam off to her through the surf. The only way we could devise to get the captain and seaman off, was to float a cork-jacket on shore, at the end of a line, which being put on by the captain and seaman, alternately, and a rope tied round them, they were hauled through the surf without any other injury than swallowing a quantity of salt-water.
Bird's Island is an uninhabited rock, about a league in circumference, and the highest part from five to eight hundred feet above the ocean. Where our boat landed, is the only spot where a landing could be effected, and upon that side alone it has an inclination by which it may be ascended. Every where else it is perpendicular, and at a distance, looks like the work of art. It has a scanty vegetation.
At five, P.M., January the 11th, we made sail for the island of Oahoo, with a fine breeze from the westward and pleasant weather. At daylight, on the following morning, we saw the small island of Onehow, and soon afterwards, the highland of Atooi. During the whole day, we were coming up with and sailing along on the west side of Atooi, moving at the rate of eight and nine miles per hour. Of a clear day, it may be seen at least fifty or sixty miles. We did not approach nearer to it than eight or ten. It had the appearance, at that distance, of beautiful table-land, being every where very regular and of nearly the same altitude. Towards evening, on the 12th of January, we made the island of Oahoo, and should have been at anchor in Onavoora on the following day had we passed between Atooi and Oahoo, but from some mistake about the prevailing winds on the opposite side of Oahoo, we continued on round the north end of it, and did not anchor at Onavoora until the sixteenth. Two or three American merchant vessels were lying there, with which we exchanged salutes. The Dolphin was the first American man-of-war that ever entered a harbour of the Sandwich Islands, and the firing of the guns, and the report widely circulated that an American man-of-war had arrived, brought the inhabitants from far and near to the shore of the harbour to witness the novel sight. Several of our countrymen, who were traders here, and had been expecting us for some time, came on board to offer their congratulations, and invite us on shore to partake of their hospitality. It was highly gratifying to us upon landing, to meet nearly all of our countrymen residing at the Island, who came down, en masse, to the beach, to welcome us on shore, in the most kind and friendly manner. We were a little disappointed, however, when we came to look round and found that none of the missionaries had partaken in the general sentiment. They were also our countrymen, and from the character of benevolence and philanthropy they had assumed to themselves, we had a right to expect they would have been amongst the first to hail us with a welcome to their lonely abode. We expected, indeed, that they would not only have received us as countrymen, but as friends, whose kindness, and sympathy would be highly acceptable to them in their peculiar situation.
From the shore we were escorted to a large frame building called the wooden-house, then occupied by our countryman, Captain Wilds, where a handsome dinner was prepared, to which every luxury was added that could be obtained from the shipping or the shore. We were much surprised on landing, to find a rabble of naked and half-naked natives, amounting to many hundreds, as we had been taught to believe, from the various information we had received, that their condition was much improved, and that they were far advanced in civilization. They were of all ages, and formed a more varied and fantastic group than I had any where seen, even where no degree of civilization had taken place, from an intercourse with white men. Some of them were quite naked; some had their native dress of tappa cloths; some had on cotton shirts, some a pair of old trowsers, and some nothing but an old jacket. Many of them had adorned their heads with wreaths of red and yellow flowers, and some their necks and wrists with necklaces and bracelets of shells. They expressed the greatest pleasure at seeing us, shouting and crowding around, so that we could not get along without pushing them out of the way. In appearance, a comparison of them with the natives of the Marquesas or Mulgrave Islands, would have been greatly to their disadvantage. On the following day, we were again invited to dine at the same place, where we met a second time with our countrymen, and interchanged with them those sentiments of friendship and sympathy that naturally arise on meeting in a strange land, and which are felt by Americans with peculiar force. It appeared to us that they could not sufficiently express their gratification at seeing us at Oahoo, by the most unremitted attention, for they continued to feast and give us parties every day for more than a week, and until our various and pressing duties made it inconvenient for us to partake of them. On the first sabbath after our arrival, I went to the place of worship appointed by the missionaries for the natives. A large building, formerly occupied for this purpose, had been destroyed a short time previous to our arrival, and as they had now no house sufficiently large to contain the whole congregation, the place appointed for worship was an extensive enclosure in the rear of a large frame building, which is occupied as the dwelling of the young king. Within this enclosure, was assembled about a thousand people, as I supposed, seated on the ground. Some of them were dressed in silks, cottons, and calicoes, and others were in their native dress, being quite naked, except about the waist. They were in the open air, without any protection from the sun, which was pouring its vertical rays upon them. Mr. Bingham, the head of the mission, was addressing them in the language of the island, and when he saw me at the outer edge of the circle, very kindly beckoned me to come round where the queen dowager was seated. He was standing there himself. A native was holding an umbrella over his head, and around him were seated all the chief men and women, some in chairs, and some of them on the ground. With one or two exceptions, they were all people of uncommon size. Some of them were quite neatly dressed, but others had displayed a most whimsical and ridiculous fancy. When I came near Cahumanu, who was the favourite wife of the departed and highly distinguished Tamahamaha, she extended her hand to me and bade one of her attendants bring me a chair. The service lasted about an hour, when the assemblage dispersed, and the natives ran away as much pleased as so many children let loose from school. At the close of the service, I promised myself so much politeness on the part of the distinguished personages present, as to receive from some of them an invitation to go into their houses, as I was in the uniform of a foreign officer; but in this I was altogether disappointed. I had the satisfaction of speaking, for a few minutes, with Mr. Bingham, whose attention was soon called from me by the presence of some chief, with whom he wished to exchange a salutation, and after recognizing two or three of the chiefs present whom I had seen before, I was suffered to depart without receiving any further notice.
On Monday, I made a call of ceremony on the high chief Boque, who was one of the attendants of the late king Rio Rio, on his visit to the king of England. He was a man of about thirty years of age, upwards of six feet, and stout in proportion. He had a flat nose and thick lips, but the general expression of his face was that of benevolence and good nature—an expression truly characteristic, according to the testimony of those who have had an opportunity of knowing him well. We found him sitting in a chair at a table, with a desk before him, upon which he was making pot-hooks after a copy, having just commenced learning to write. He got up and shook hands with us, as did also his wife, who was seated on some mats at the other end of the hut. Boque was dressed in a coarse linen shirt and trowsers, having a pair of heavy shoes on his feet, without any stockings. Queen Boque was nearly as large as her husband, and looked a good deal like him. She had on a plain white muslin cap and dress, neither of which were very clean or neatly put on. It was, however, in as good taste as could be expected in so rude a state of society, but I thought it less becoming than would have been her native dress. She invited us to be seated, and made an attempt at politeness, such as she had seen practised in England, having accompanied her husband thither. The hut was an oblong building, about sixty by forty feet. Its simple structure was the same that has been in use in the islands from time immemorial, being poles laid over crotches, upon which the rafters rested, and differing in nothing from the habitations of the poorest people, except that the crotches, poles, and rafters, were longer, and there were more of them. It was thatched from the top all the way to the ground, with a thick covering of grass. The interior was all in one apartment, from the top of the rafters to the hard beaten ground floor. There was nothing ornamental, and no superfluous furniture. A bedstead standing in one corner, with some pieces of white tappa cloth of the island for curtains, whereon was laid a pile of mats for a bed; two or three piles of mats laying along near the centre of the hut, raised one or two feet from the floor, by being piled one above the other, for beds or lounging places; two or three old chairs; a plain table of small dimensions, and a dressing-case with a mirror in it, was all of Boque's furniture, either useful or ornamental. Besides these may be mentioned a few hollow gourds for poye, (a favourite food of the Sandwich Islanders, made from the tarrow,) hanging at the side of the hut.
Leaving Boque's palace, we went with the intention of making a similar call upon the high chief Crimacu, known to strangers who have visited the island, by the name of Billy Pitt. He was the high carnie, or great friend of Tamahamaha, in whose wars he was greatly distinguished for personal prowess, sagacity, and wisdom. When we came to his hut, we found him sleeping in a swinging cot, with several attendants sitting round, one of whom was fanning him. He was in very ill health, having for a long time been afflicted with the dropsy, and we departed without waking him. His hut differed in nothing from that of Boque, except that it was not so large, and had a greater profusion of mats in it. It was standing in one corner of an extensive plain, that was partially enclosed by a wicker fence just at the outskirts of the town of Onaroora, and all around it was growing wild grass and weeds, except where the footsteps of the people, who passed to and from the hut, had trodden them down. It looked but little like the habitation of a man who had been a great warrior, and associated as second in authority with one who had conquered and ruled over thousands of men. One would naturally suppose that in emerging from a savage state, with absolute power, he would have made an attempt, at least, to imitate the style and manners of the white men with whom he was constantly meeting, and always on terms of friendship.