374 ARRIVAL OF THE MISSIONARIES. [IS40. 



relatives lament the loss they have sustained, by wailing for 

 several days and nights in succession over the corpse of the 

 deceased. The most doleful cries are uttered at these wakes, 

 and should one of the royal family be the object of their lam- 

 entations, the sad auwe is echoed from every town and ham- 

 I hroughout the group by a whole nation of mourners. Joy 

 at the meeting of friends after a long separation is expressed 

 in a somewhat similar manner. They take each other by 

 the hand, rub their noses together, and at the same time utter 

 the word aloha, in a low wailing tone. 



(3.) When these islands were first discovered by Cook, 

 were governed by different chiefs or sovereigns, but 

 • ;i s ries of long and bloody wars, they were reduced by 

 the great Kamameha, the founder of the present dynasty, 

 under one general head. He was succeeded in 1819 by his 

 son Kamameha II, under whose auspices taboo was abol- 

 ished ; the accustomed sacrifices were withheld from the 

 gods, or akuas ; and pleasure, licentiousness, and intemper- 

 ance, engrossed the time, and occupied the thoughts, of the 

 whole people. Matters were in this condition when the first 

 missionaries, sent out by the American Board of Foreign 

 Missions, arrived at the islands, in March, 1820. They 

 were kindly, if not cordially received, and permitted at once 

 to enter upon their labors. Though, like others of the same 

 class, they seem to have long entertained the hope of con- 

 verting the Hawaiian Islands into a real, and not visionary 

 Utopia, their efforts have, nevertheless, been far more practi- 

 cally directed, than those of missionaries generally in the 

 Polynesian groups. Well knowing that idleness was the fruit- 

 ful parent of'irreligion and vice, they commenced instructing 

 the natives in the useful arts, and endeavored to create in- 

 centives to the prosecution of industrial pursuits. In procur- 

 ing the abolition, however, as far as was possible, of the an- 

 cient customs and amusements of the people, without sub- 

 stituting something of a similar character in their stead, they 

 have, perhaps, committed an irreparable error ; but if it be 

 such, the motives that animated them have been pure and 



