276 VOYAGE TO THE 



pI Jx P ' ^ a ^ sne wou ^ come on board the following day. 

 i ~^~~ l Scarcely twenty minutes had elapsed, however, from 

 T826.' the receipt of this note, when we were surprised by 

 the appearance of the party, consisting of the queen 

 regent, the queen dowager and her youthful hus- 

 band, and Utamme and his wife. Their dress was 

 an incongruous mixture of European and native 

 costumes ; the two queens had wrappers of native 

 cloth wound loosely round their bodies, and on their 

 heads straw poked bonnets, manufactured on the 

 island, in imitation of some which had been carried 

 thither by European females, and trimmed with 

 black ribands. Their feet were left bare, in oppo- 

 sition to the showy covering of their heads, as if 

 purposely to mark the contrast between the two 

 countries whose costumes they united ; and neatly 

 executed blue lines formed an indelible net-work 

 over that portion of the frame which in England 

 would have been covered with silk or cotton. 

 Utamme, who, without meaning any insinuations 

 to the disadvantage of the queen, appeared to be on 

 a very familiar footing with her majesty, (notwith- 

 standing he was accompanied by his own wife), was 

 a remarkably tall and comely man ; he wore a straw 

 hat, and a white shirt, under which he had taken 

 the necessary precaution of tying on his native 

 maro, and was provided with an umbrella to screen 

 his complexion from the sun. This is the common 

 costume of all the chiefs, to whom an umbrella is 

 now become almost as indispensable as a shirt ; but 

 by far the greater part of the rest of the population 

 are contented with a mat and a maro. 



It may be desirable, in this early period of our 

 communications with the court of Otaheite, to state 



