HONOLULU. 405 



Round Island is approached, but none that it would be advisable for 

 a vessel to enter, the ground inside being thickly studded with sunken 

 coral reefs. 



The tender, after reaching Round Island, made sail for the Ha- 

 waiian Islands, and performed the passage in thirty-three days. They 

 did not see any thing during the whole route. The weather they 

 experienced seems to have been much of the same kind as heretofore 

 described ; there was little interruption of the easterly winds. The 

 northeast trades were met in latitude 10° N., and the tender crossed 

 the equator in longitude 166° W. The easterly current was found 

 to affect her in latitudes from 4° to 6° N., and they occasionally 

 experienced the westerly current during the rest of the passage. 



I have already mentioned the warm reception we met with at the 

 Hawaiian Islands. The governor, Kekuanaoa, kindly placed at my 

 disposal the large stone house belonging to Kekauluohi, in the square 

 where the tomb in which the royal family are interred, is situated. 

 The tomb was at that time undergoing some repairs. The state 

 coffins, which are richly ornamented with scarlet and gold cloth, and 

 in two of which the bodies of the late king, Liho-liho, and his 

 wife were brought from England, in the frigate Blonde, were de- 

 posited in the house I was to occupy. The governor had them at 

 once removed to the tomb, and in two days I was comfortably 

 established, and engaged in putting up my instruments, and getting 

 ready to carry on our shore duties. 



It will now be necessary for me to enter into some particulars 

 relative to the future operations of the squadron, in order to show the 

 difficulties that had to be encountered at this part of the cruise. 

 Before reaching Oahu, I was convinced that it would be altogether 

 too late to attempt any thing on the Northwest Coast of America this 

 year, and to winter there would have rendered us liable to contract 

 diseases to which the men would have been too prone, after the hard 

 service they had seen in the tropics ; besides, I was averse to passing 

 our time in comparative inactivity, and I wished to make the most of 

 the force that had been intrusted to my charge. As my instructions 

 had not contemplated such an event, I was left to my own judgment 

 and resources, to choose the course which would prove most beneficial 

 to our commerce, and to science ; I had also to take into account what 

 we could accomplish in some other direction, prior to the end of April, 

 when the season would become favourable for our operations on the 

 Northwest Coast, and in the Columbia River. 



vol. in. 102 



