CHARACTER OF THE LATE QUEEN. 329 she manifested no ordinary concern. Long before many of the leading chiefs were favourable to the instruction of the people or their reception of Christianity, Kamehamaru on every suitable occasion recommended to her own servants to serve Jehovah the living God, and attend to every means of improvement within their reach. It was truly pleasing to observe, so soon after she had embraced Christianity herself, an anxiety to induce her people to follow her example. At Honoruru she erected a school, in which upwards of forty children and young persons, principally connected with her establishment, were daily taught to read and write, and instructed in the first principles of religion, by a native teacher, whom she almost entirely supported. In this school she took a lively interest, and marked the progress of the scholars with evident satisfaction; in order to encourage the pupils, she frequently visited the school during the hours of instruction, accompanied by a number of chief women. She also attended the public examinations, and noticed those who on these Occasions excelled, frequently presenting a favourite scholar with a slate, a copy-book, pencil, pen, or some other token of her approbation. In her death the missionaries have lost a sincere friend, and her subjects a queen who always delighted to alleviate their distresses and promote their interests. Her disposition was affectionate. I have seen her and the king sitting beside the couch of Keopuolani, her mother-in-law, day after day, when the latter has been ill; and on these occasions, though there might be several servants in constant attendance, she would allow no individual but her husband or herself to hand to the patient any thing she might want, or even fan the flies from her person. The circumstances attending her departure from the islands were peculiarly affecting. The king had gone on board L'Aigle; but the boat was waiting to convey her to the ship. She arose from the mat on which she had been reclining, embraced her mother and other relations most affectionately, and passed through the crowd towards the boat. The people fell down on their knees as she walked along, pressing and saluting her feet-frequently bathing them with tears of unfeigned sorrow-and making loud wailings, in which they were joined by the thousands who thronged the shore. On reaching the water-side, she turned and beckoned to the people to cease their cries. As soon as they were silent, she said, "I am going to a distant land, and perhaps we shall not meet again. Let us pray to Jehovah, that he may preserve us on the water and you on the shore." She then called Auna, a native teacher from the Society Islands, and requested him to pray. He did so; at the conclusion she waved her hand to the people, and said, "Arohá nui oukou" (attachment great to you): she then stepped into the boat, evidently much affected. The multitude followed her, not only to the beach, but into the sea, where many, wading into the water, stood waving their hands, exhibiting every attitude of sorrow, and uttering their loud u-e! u-e! (alas! alas!) till the boat had pulled far out to sea. The death of the king and queen, so soon after their arrival in England, was an event in many respects deeply to be deplored. The officers of the London Missionary Society were unable to gain access to them until they should have been introduced to his majesty ; and one of them, I believe the king, died on the very day on which that introduction was to have taken place. The same circumstance also prevented many Christian friends, who felt interested in their welfare, from that intercourse with them which, under the blessing of God, might have been expected to have strengthened the religious impressions they had received from the instructions of the missionaries. In their visit to England they were accompanied by a suite, which, though much less numerous than that which invariably attended their movements in their native islands, included nevertheless, several individuals of rank and influence. Among the principal of these was Boki, the governor of the island of Oahu, and Liliha, his wife; Kauruheimarama, a distant relation of the king; Kakuanaoa and Kapihe, two of his favourite companions; the latter of whom was a man of an amiable disposition, and, considering the circumstances under which he had been brought up, possessed general intelligence. He had made a voyage to Canton in China, for the purpose of acquiring mercantile information; and, from the circumstance of his commanding the finest vessel belong ing to the king, a brig of about ninety tons burden, called the Haaheo Hawaii (pride of Hawaii), he was sometimes called the admiral, although that is an office to which there is nothing analogous in the present maritime system of the Hawaiians. With this individual, who died at Valparaiso, on his return to the islands, and the others who survived the death of the king, particularly with Boki, the officers of the London Missionary Society had several interviews, and received the strongest assurances of their continued patronage and support of the Christian mission established in the Sandwich Islands. Many benevolent individuals had also an opportunity of testifying the deep interest they felt in the civil, moral, and religious improvement of their countrymen. It is a pleasing fact, in connexion with the present circumstances of the nation, that almost every chief of rank and influence in the Sandwich Islands is favourably disposed towards the instruction of the natives and the promulgation of the gospel. A deep sense of the kindness of the friends by whom the chiefs who survived the king and queen were visited at Portsmouth, appears to have remained on the minds of the Hawaiian chiefs long after their return to their native land; for when the Rev. C. S. Stewart, an American missionary, was about to leave the Sandwich Islands for Great Britain, Boki gave him a special charge to present his grateful regards to the Bishop of Portsmouth. Mr. S. told him he was not aware that there was such a dignitary; but Boki said, Yes, there was, for he visited him, with some of his friends, when they were on the point of sailing from England. I at first heard that the late Dr. Bogue was the individual to whom Boki referred; but I have since learned, that in consequence of severe domestic affliction at that time it is uncertain whether he did or did not; and that the Sandwich Island chief referred either to the Rev. C. Simeon of Cambridge, or the Rev. J. Griffin, by both of whom he was visited. Among the letters I was favoured to receive from the islands by the return of his majesty's ship Blonde, those from Boki and Liliha, or, as she was frequently called while in England, Madam Boki, were of a character so interesting, that I think I shall be pardoned for inserting one of them. It is from Boki, the chief who was with the king in London. I shall translate it very literally "Oahu. The first of the Twins is the month (answering to our October), 1825. "Affection for you, Mr. Ellis, and sympathy with you, MrsEllis, in your illness. This is my entreaty: return you hither, and we shall be right. Grief was ours on your returning. Heard before this have you of the death of the king: but all things here are correct. We are serving God: we are making ourselves strong in His Word. Turned have the chiefs to instruction: their desire is towards God. I speak unto them, and encourage them concerning the Word of God, that it may be well with our land. "Attachment to you two, attachment to the At ten o'clock in the forenoon of the 9th I took leave of my kind friends at Lahaina, and in company with Messrs. Bingham and Richards went on board the Tamahorolani, bound to Oahu. It was, however, four o'clock in the afternoon before the vessel hove up her anchor. We were becalmed till nine in the evening, when a fresh breeze sprang up; we passed down the channel between Morokai and Ranai; and between nine and ten in the forenoon of the 10th arrived off the harbour of Honoruru. On landing I was grateful to meet my family in health and comfort, except Mrs. Ellis, who was confined by severe indisposition. I united with Messrs. Thurston, Bishop, and Goodrich, who had previously arrived, in grateful acknowledgments to God for the unremitted care and distinguishing goodness which we had enjoyed in accomplishing the interesting tour, from which, under circumstances of no small mercy, we had now returned. APPENDIX. REMARKS ON THE HAWAIIAN LANGUAGE. In the course of our tour around Hawaii, we met with a few specimens of what may perhaps be termed the first efforts of an uncivilized people towards the construction of a language of symbols. Along the southern coast, both on the east and west sides, we frequently saw a number of straight lines, semicircles, or concentric rings, with some rude imitations of the human figure, cut or carved in the compact rocks of lava. They did not appear to have been cut with an iron instrument, but with a stone hatchet, or a stone less frangible than the rock on which they were portrayed. On inquiry, we found that they had been made by former travellers, from a motive similar to that which induces a person to carve his initials on a stone or tree, or a traveller to record his name in an album, to inform his successors that he has been there. When there were a number of concentric circles with a dot or mark in the centre, the dot signified a man, and the number of rings denoted the number in the party who had circumambulated the island. When there was a ring and a number of marks, it denoted the same; the number of marks showing of how many the party consisted; and the ring, that they had travelled completely round the island; but when there was only a semicircle, it denoted that they had returned after reaching the place where it was made. In some of the islands we have seen the outline of a fish portrayed in the same manner, to denote that one of that species or size had been taken near the spot; sometimes the dimensions of an exceedingly large fruit. &c. are marked in the same way. With this slight exception, if such it can be called, the natives of the Sandwich and other islands had no signs for sounds or ideas, nor any pictorial representation of events. Theirs was entirely an oral language; and, whatever view we take of it, presents the most interesting phenomenon connected with the |