LANDING AT RIMATARA. 19 



beautiful, and would be deemed paragons, even 

 in the artificial state where beauty is not left 

 so much to itself, but has to be busked, bustled, 

 and corseted by omnipotent fashion. 



I soon made my way to the island king, 

 Temaeva, who sat apart from others upon a 

 block of coral, and leaning on a staff, his only 

 dress being a shirt and kihei (mantle). He 

 was a benevolent-looking, well-made man, hav- 

 ing the port and presence of a king, and, if 

 that were all, 



" With Atlantean shoulders fit to bear 

 The weight of mightiest monarchies." 



He offered me his hand with much apparent 

 cordiality, and immediately led the way to his 

 house in the interior. The path was at first 

 rugged as the volcanic clinkers of Hawaii, over 

 heaps and swells of broken and sharp coral, 

 overgrown with huge roots of the Kamani and 

 Koa trees, in the borrowed terms of Words- 

 worth, 



" A growth 



Of intertwisted fibres serpentine, 

 Up-coiling, and inveterately conyolved." 



c 2 



