384 HONOLULU. 
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 deposited 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. Be- 
fore 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 re- 
sources, 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. 
On our way from the Feejees, various hints were thrown out that 
the times of the crew had expired, and that they would not reship. 
I understood their disposition, however, and had little apprehension 
of their being led astray by those who were disposed to create diffi- 
culties among them. Their time, in their opinion, would expire on 
the 1st of November; in my mind this construction was at least 
