16 TRANSACTIONS OF THE CANADIAN INSTITUTE. [ Vou. IU 
the colonies, but not in these islands, for overweening confidence, care- 
lessness, and vanity are not considered by the Hawaiians as attributes of 
acommander. The early history of the people of Hawaii and the other 
islands is unknown ; the place whence they originally came, the date of 
their first appearance here, and the primary source of their religion, are 
mysteries that will likely remain unsolved forever. Taken into consider- 
ation that their traditions have been handed down verbally from father 
to son and from chief to chief—or chiefess—it is remarkable that they 
have preserved so much of the history of their ancestors ; from the year 
1095 (approximate) to the present day there has been an unbroken line 
of sovereigns of Hawaii. During the three centuries preceding the “Con- 
federation” the history of these islands is one long story of romance, 
warfare, and religion ; a story of a noble race, of brave men, and gentle, 
loving women—a nation-story much the same as it is, was, and ever will 
be, all the world over; with men of all creeds and colours, two great 
factors influence their lives for better or for worse—ambition and affec- 
tion. Although the Hawaiians never practised the horrible habit, canni- 
balism was common among a band of savages who came from one of the 
South Sea Islands and established themselves for a time in the mountain 
districts of Kauai and on the northern shore of Oahu. But they were 
not permitted to stay long there, for the natives, finding out that they 
were man-eaters, made war upon them and drove the foreigners from 
island to island; till finally the “consumers of home production” were 
forced to set sail for the place from which they came—the unknown land. 
Thus came and went the last of the cannibals. The religion of the 
Hawaiians was a system of idolatry based upon certain meles, or song 
stories, which had been handed down from generation to generation, and 
preserved with integrity by the priests, who met at the heiaus and recited 
—the older to the younger—the “articles of belief,’ the traditions of 
Church and State. But, says a recent writer, “How did the Hawaiian 
priesthood become possessed of the story of the Hebrew Genesis?” In 
1794 Kamehameha, chief of Hawaii, succeeded in conquering the entire 
archipelago, and it has been a “kingdom” ever since. The present 
queen, Liliuokalani, is the elder sister of the late king, Kalakaua, and the 
heir to the throne is the Princess Kaiulani-Lunalilo-Kalaninuiahilapalapa. 
The population at the time of Cook’s visit was about 400,000; now it is 
only 95,000. The Hawaiian Islands are of volcanic origin; on every 
island are vestiges of these phenomena, and extinct craters are scattered 
over the surface, differing in size from the giant “ Haleakala””—the Palace 
of the Sun—on the island of Maui, to the “ Punch-bowl”’ in the city of 
Honolulu. Of extinct craters Haleakala is doubtless the largest in the 
world ; it is 10,032 feet high, 23 miles in diameter, and nearly eighty miles 
