chapter. J EXPLANATIONS AND THANKS. 



3 



months of the year, and on the windward coasts there is an 

 abundance of rain, and a perennial luxuriance of vegetation. 



The Sandwich Islands are not the same as Otaheite nor as 

 the Fijis, from which they are distant about 4000 miles, nor 

 are their people of the same race. The natives are not can- 

 nibals, and it is doubtful if they ever were so. Their idols 

 only exist in missionary museums. They cast them away 

 voluntarily in 18 19, at the very time when missionaries from 

 America sent out to Christianise the group were on their way 

 round Cape Horn. The people are all clothed, and the king, 

 who is an educated gentleman, wears the European dress. 

 The official designation of the group is " Hawaiian Islands," 

 and they form an independent kingdom. 



The natives are not savages, most decidedly not. They are 

 on the whole a quiet, courteous, orderly, harmless, Christian 

 community. The native population has declined from 400,000 

 as estimated by Captain Cook in 1778 to 49,000, according to 

 the census of 1872. There are about 5000 foreign residents, 

 who live on very friendly terms with the natives, and are 

 mostly subjects of Kalakaua, the king of the group. 



The Haw r aiians show a great aptitude for political organi- 

 zation, and the islands have a thoroughly civilized polity. 

 They constitute a limited monarchy, and have a constitutional 

 and hereditary king, a parliament with an upper and lower 

 house, a cabinet, a standing army, a police force, a Supreme 

 Court of Judicature, a most efficient postal system, a Governor 

 and Sheriff on each of the larger islands, court officials, and 

 court etiquette, a common school system, custom houses, a 

 civil list, taxes, a national debt, and most of the other ameni- 

 ties and appliances of civilization. 



There is no State Church. The majority of the foreigners, 

 as well as of the natives, are Congregationalists. The mis- 

 sionaries translated the Bible and other books into Hawaiian, 

 taught the natives to read and write, gave the princes and 

 nobles a high class education, induced the king and chiefs to 

 renounce their oppressive feudal rights, with legal advice 

 framed a constitution which became the law of the land, and 

 obtained the recognition of the little Polynesian kingdom as a 

 member of the brotherhood of civilized nations. 



With these few remarks I leave the subject of the volume to 

 develop itself in my letters. In correcting them I have availed 

 myself of the very valuable " History of the Hawaiian Islands," 

 by Mr. 'Jackson Jarves, Ellis' "Tour Round Hawaii," Mr. 



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