The Beaufort tribune and Port Royal commercial. [volume] (Beaufort, S.C.) 1877-1879, 1877-07-05
FUNERAL OF A PRINCE.
How the Heir Apparent to the Throne of
Hawaii was Buried.

Hawan was Buried.
The Detroit Tribune prints letter
from Honolulu, giving an account of the
funeral of Prince Leleohoku. The writer
says: This young prince was model of
physical beauty, and his life gave hope
of future stability to the government,
but the temptations of his rank were too
strong for his resistance. He became an
easy prey to disease, in which native.
medicine was fatally administered by a
native doctor, or kahuna, without the
knowledge of his regular physician, who
had pronounced him convalescent. The
Tribune had notice of the late eruption
of Moku-weo-weo, the $4,000 feet high
crater, which shot up column of smoke
and fire 1000 feet higher than itself, but
broke an easy passage into the ocean
near Kealakekua bay, famous as the
place where Captain Cook was killed.
This eruption, by native superstition,
presaged the death of some high chief,
and when Kanaina, the aged father of
the late King Lunalilo, died, a general
cry of "There, didn't tell you !" fol-
lowed, and now that Il told you so !" is
repeated. In olden times the bones of
the kings were thrown to the Goddess
Pele in the lake of fire everlasting in the
crater Of Kilauea, and it is generally be-
ieved that the royal mausoleum is a
grand storehouse of magnificent empty
caskets, whose occupants have gone to
Join the bones of their ancestors. Yes
terday, the State funeral brought all
Honolulu and much of the population of
this island of Oahu out to pay an honest
respect to the young prince. The process
sion marched2, 900 Strong-cavalry, infan-
try, English men-of-war's men from her
British majesty's ship Fairtome, firemen,
societies, schools, etc. Minute guns
from the punch bowl fort, 800 feet above
the town, were answered by the min
ute guns of the war ship in the harbor.
No splendid catafalque, with champing,
richly caparisoned steeds, bore him to
the tomb, but loving hands of benevo-
lent organization of Hawiian laboring
men drew the usual hearse. And as its
slow way went onward, ever and anon
some loud voice broke the stiffness in an
ancient dirge OF an extemporaneous
chant in praise of the dead. The num-
ber Of spectators is estimated at 5000.
Forty years ago. when I was but child,
one of the high chiefs died at night. A
wall of indescribable mournful violence
circumvolved Oahu. Men and women,
old and young, even children, burst out in
every key in the compass of the Hawaiian
language. The death was most unex-
pected therefore, as soon as the sound
of the first wall rose in the palace yard,
every hearing ear took up its wild
cadence, sending the tidings around the
then thickly populated island into deep
mountain valleys and by the villages
near the sea, with the rapidity Of sound.
The sleeping awoke to wall and murder
sleep until day, and all that day the wall
ing continued. This was part of heath
enism. What change Our prince was
a member of st. Andrews church (Epis-
copaD, and, so far as known, not a
heather performance marred the con-
sistency of his burial. The power of
the Gospel and its consequent civilization
was never more marked in its manifesto
tions than in this funeral of Prince Will
liam Pitt Leleohoku.