letter xxi. ] THE MAKAUELI HOUSEHOLD. 



203 



population. Niihau is famous for its very fine mats, and for 

 necklaces of shells six yards long, as well as for the extreme 

 beauty and variety of the shells which are found there. 



The household here consists first and foremost of its head, 



Mrs. , a lady of the old Scotch type, very talented, bright, 



humorous, charming, with a definite character which impresses 

 its force upon everybody ; beautiful in her old age, disdaining 

 that servile conformity to prevailing fashion which makes many 

 old people at once ugly and contemptible : speaking English 

 with a slight, old-fashioned, refined Scotch accent, which gives 

 naivete to everything she says; up to the latest novelty in 

 theology and politics : devoted to her children and grand- 

 children, the life of the family, and though upwards of seventy, 

 the first to rise, and the last to retire in the house. She was 

 away when I came, but some days afterwards rode up on horse- 

 back, in a large, drawn silk bonnet, which she rarely lays aside, 

 as light in her figure and step as a young girl, looking as if she 

 had walked out of an old picture, or one of Dean Ramsay's 

 books. 



Then there are her eldest son, a bachelor, two widowed 

 daughters with six children between them, three of whom are 

 grown up young men, and a tutor, a young Prussian officer, 

 who was on Maximilian's staff up to the time of the Queretaro 

 disaster, and is still suffering from Mexican barbarities. The 

 remaining daughter is married to a Norwegian gentleman, who 

 owns and resides on the next property. So the family is 

 together, and the property is large enough to give scope to the 

 grandchildren as they require it. 



They are thoroughly Hawaiianised. The young people all 

 speak Hawaiian as easily as English, and the three young men, 

 who are superb young fellows, about six feet high, not only 

 emulate the natives in feats of horsemanship, such as throwing 

 the lasso, and picking up a coin while going at full gallop, 

 but are surf-board riders, an art which it has been said to be 

 impossible for foreigners to acquire. 



The natives on Niihau and in this part of Kauai, call 



Mrs. " Mama." Their rent seems to consist in giving 



one or more days' service in a month, so it is a revival, of 

 the old feudality. In order to patronise native labour, my 

 hosts dispense with a Chinese, and employ a native cook, 

 and native women come in and profess to do some of the 

 housework, but it is a very troublesome arrangement, and 

 ends in the ladies doing all the finer cooking, and superin- 



