The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1904-07-24

of that period loaded with p1unes. She
rode in a cart which had been painted
sky blue, and sat with her feet dangling
from the back of the vehicle which was
drawn by twenty men. Kinau was
from the first, the stanch friend of the
missionaries, looking to them for the
moral regeneration of her people who,
after the death of Kaahumanu, were
sinking deeper and deeper into degra-
! dation, their vices acquired from con-
tact with the lawlesS crews of traders
and whaling vessels that touched at the
! islands.
She gave the new arrivals comfort
| able huts in which to live, and saw that
they were abundantlv supplied with
food; but they knew that their post was
no sinecure, and that they must make a
full and satisfactory return for every
favor granted them. They established
additional schools, to which all the peo-
pie came, the old and young, irrespective
of rank. When the conch shell was
sounded which announced the opening
of the session, the people hurried to
the schoolhouses which could not ac-
conmodate them all; the huts were de-
serted and all other business was for
the time suspended. Such was their
ardent desire to learn, they went about
with school-boolls in their hands that
they might improve every moment. The
brunt of the teaching during this re-
narkable epoch fell upon the wives of
the missionaries who not only labored
in the schools but were required to re-
ceive into their households the children
of the chiefs that they might be in
structed also in the domestic arts,-the
girls in sewing, cooking and general
homework, and the boys in the use of
tools. 1t sometimes happened that as
many as twenty of these charges were
committed to the care of a single fam
lily In addition to this, the chiefs ac-
quired taste for American cookery and
dropped in to dine or sup informally,
as the impulse seized them. A COM
muniStic system had prevailed from time
immemorial, and the contents of the
poi calabash were free to. all corners.
They knew no reason why the same
easy custom should not be applied to
the Americans, leaving out of account
the difficulties of preparing the more
varied delicacies which they expected.
1t was not an uncommon thing for
sixty or seventy persons, chiefs and
their retinues, to drop in without pre-
vious notice to be served in detach-
ments, in their turn, with the most
careful regard for precedence, which the
etiquette of the country ordained. The
clothing of the missionary women wore
out and there was nothing with which
they could replace it, ships from Eu-
rope or the United States visiting Ho-
nolulu only at long intervals. The oc-
casiona1 gifts which they received from
the queen, gay silks like those which
she wore herself. they very properly
considered unfit for people of their call
ing, and they certainly were ill-adapted
to the practical everyday use for which
they were required. They suffered es-
peeially from need of shoes.
The grass houses in which the ma
tives lived were not convenient, being
badly lighted and ventilated and with no
provision for privacy, to which the Am |
orleans had always been accustomed. !
The framework of a dwelling house, |
sills, rafters. shingles doors and win /
dows, was sent out from Boston, ready /
to put together. But it was an old, time |
honored Hawaiian law that no one could |
occupy loftier position, literally, than |
the king. or live in a better house, and |
it was months before Liholiho, who was /
then reigning would consent to have |
the American house put up. Permission
was asked repeatedly and as often re-
fused AT length, two of the Americans
went with their wives to make last
appeal. One of the women was about
to become a mother. and when the king
perceived her condition. realizing the
hardship of her life. a stranger in a
strange land, deprived of all the COM
forts to which she had been accustomed,
he was touched with compassion and
-elented
The house was an object of the great
est interest when it was finally com
oleted. and when the king inspected If,
ne ordered one for himself, which, how
ever, he stipulated, should be three in |
stead OF two stories high. The old