PACIFIC AND BEERING’S STRAIT. 
417 
cumstances as those in which the Sandwich Islands were placed. At CHAP, 
the period of our visit there were in Woahoo several respectable 
American merchants, in whose stores were to be found aU the necessary Ja«. 
articles of American manufacture, the productions of the China market, 
wines, and almost every article of sea store. There were also two hotels, 
at which a person might board respectably for a dollar a day ; two 
billiard rooms, one of which was the property of Boki ; and ten or a 
dozen public houses for retailing spirits. The houses of the chiefs were 
furnished with tables and chairs, and those belonging to Kahumana 
with silk and velvet sofas and cushions. Not contented with the com- 
forts of life, they latterly sought its luxuries, and even indulged in its 
extravagances. Kahumana filled chests with the most costly silks of 
China, and actually expended four thousand dollars upon the cargo of 
one vessel. Boki paid three thousand dollars for a service of plate as 
a present for the king, notwithstanding he had other services in his pos- 
session ; one of which was of expensively cut glass from Pellatt and 
Green in London. 
This progress of luxury was attended by an equally remarkable 
change in the civil and political arrangements of the country. At the 
period of our visit the king was always attended by a guard under arms ; 
a sentinel presented his musket when an officer entered the threshold 
of the royal abode ; soldiers paraded the ramparts of a fort mounting 
forty guns ; and “ all’s well” was repeated throughout the town during 
the night. The harbour in the spring and autumn was crowded with 
foreign vessels, as many even as fifty having been seen there at one 
time ; five thousand stand of arms were said to be distributed over 
the island; three hundred men were embodied and dressed in regi- 
mentals ; and the Sandwich Island flag was daily displayed by five brigs 
and eight schooners. The islands had already received consuls from 
Great Britain and the United States ; had concluded treaties of alliance 
with them ; and we have just heard that their spirit of enterprise has 
induced them to fit out, and despatch an expedition to take possession 
of some of the islands of the New Hebrides-. 
This state of advancement, considering the remoteness of the 
situation of these islands, and the little intercourse they have hitherto 
3 H 
