letter xiii.] ROYAL AMIABILITY. 



[his faults, which have doubtless been rumoured in the English 

 gapers. It is hoped that his new responsibilities will assist 

 [him to conquer them, else I fear he may go the way of several 

 of the Hawaiian kings. He has begun his reign with marked 

 good sense in selecting as his advisers confessedly the best 

 men in his kingdom, and all his public actions since his election 

 [have shown both tact and good feeling. If sons, as is often 

 asserted, take their intellects from their mothers, he should be 

 (decidedly superior, for his mother, Kekauluohi, a chieftainess 

 [of the highest rank, and one of the queens of Kamehameha II., 

 who died in London, was in 1839 chosen for her abilities by 

 Kamehameha III., as his kuhina mu, or premier, an officer 

 recognised under the old system of Hawaiian government as 

 second only in authority to the king, and without whose signa- 

 roire even his act was not legal. As Kaahumanu II. she 

 continued to hold this important position until her death in 



I But the present king does not come of the direct line of the 

 Hawaiian kings, but of a far older family. His father is a 

 commoner, but Hawaiian rank is inherited through the mother. 

 He received a good English education at the school which the 

 missionaries established for the sons of chiefs, and was noted 

 as a very bright scholar, with an early developed taste for 

 literature and poetry. His disposition is said to be most 

 amiable and genial, and his affability endeared him especially 

 to his own countrymen, by whom he was called alii lokomaikai, 

 "the kind chief." In spite of his high rank, which gave him 

 precedence of all others on the islands, he was ignored by two 

 previous governments, and often complained that he was never 

 allowed any opportunity of becoming acquainted with public 

 affairs, or of learning whether he possessed any capacity for 

 business. Thus, without experience, but with noble and 

 liberal instincts, and the highest and most patriotic aspirations 

 for the welfare and improvement of his " weak little kingdom," 

 Tie was unexpectedly called to the throne about three months 

 ago, amidst such an enthusiasm as had never before been 

 witnessed on Hawaii-nei, as the unanimous choice of the 

 people. He called on Mr. Coan the day of his arrival ■ and 

 when the flute band of Mr. Lyman's school serenaded him, he 

 made the youths a kind address, in which he said he had been 

 taught as they were, and hoped hereafter to profit by the in- 

 struction he had received. 

 This has been a great day in Hilo. The old native custom 



