Director' s Annual Report. 5 



antiquities in the collection, for illustration in my proposed history, 

 and I of course went out to Kalihi to see how it would be possible 

 to arrange the specimens in the two very moderate sized rooms at 

 my disposal before agreeing to Mr. Bishop's proposal : it was a 

 rather uninteresting interruption to my historical studies, and 

 besides, except for the cases in the Kahili Room, there were neither 

 cases nor shelves, nor even tables for the exhibition or even stor- 

 age of the very miscellaneous collection. The interior walls were 

 all white plaster, and the koa stairway, very ugly architecturally, 

 looked too bright against the plaster walls. Mr. Bishop did not 

 turn the Museum over to the Trustees until it had gathered within 

 its walls all that he had in the way of Hawaiian relics. 



I had at first some difficulty in getting cheap redwood cases 

 with common glass of very poor quality in which to place the more 

 delicate specimens, but I felt that there was the foundation for a 

 good ethnological museum if it could be properl}^ housed and dis- 

 played, with such additions as were needed to fill lacunar and I 

 undertook the not very interesting task. If it had not been for the 

 full note books I had made in my previous visit to these islands in 

 1864-65, I could have done little in cataloguing the heterogeneous 

 mass spread out on the temporary board tables ; but there came 

 another help in the acquisition of the Government Museum collec- 

 tions which contained many much needed specimens, although 

 many were decayed and insect eaten owing to neglect or ignorance 

 of museum methods. 



I have mentioned that when I first heard of Mr. Bishop's pro- 

 posed museum I had suggested the incorporation of this Govern- 

 ment collection, but for some time there was considerable opposition 

 on the part of the Government rather than on Mr. Bishop's part, 

 when a chance remark of the Attorney-General, that he needed 

 more room and that the visitors to the Museum disturbed his 

 department, gave me the hint and I urged him to use all his great 

 influence to secure the transfer of the collections to the new Kalihi 



building and thus putting at the disposal of the law department 



[121] 



