THROUGH HAWAII. 
31 
pleasing evidence of piety, and understanding English, 
were qualified to act as interpreters, and assist the 
missionaries in the acquisition of the language. The 
difficult task of settling the orthography of an unwritten 
language, required all their energies; but by diligent 
application, and the help of the elementary books in the 
dialects of the Society Islands and New Zealand, they 
were enabled, in the beginning of 1822, to put to press the 
first sheet of a Hawaiian spelling-book, and to present 
the natives with the elements of the vernacular tongue 
in a printed form. Schools were established on a scale 
less extended than the missionaries desired, but not 
without advantage, as many of their early scholars made 
encouraging proficiency, and have since become useful 
teachers. The more public instructions were generally 
well received by the people. 
Tamehameha, who had governed the islands thirty 
years, and whose decease took place not twelve months 
before their arrival, had invariably rendered the most 
prompt and acceptable aid to those English vessels 
which had touched at the islands. In return for the 
friendship so uniformly manifested, the British govern¬ 
ment instructed the governor of New South Wales to 
order a schooner to be built at Port Jackson, and sent 
as a present to the king of the Sandwich Islands. In 
the month of February, 1822, his majesty’s colonial 
cutter, Mermaid, having in charge the vessel designed 
for the king of Hawaii, put into the harbour of Huahine 
for refreshments. The captain of the Mermaid politely 
offered a passage either to the deputation from the 
London Missionary Society, then at Huahine, or any of 
the missionaries who might wish to visit the Sandwich 
Islands. We had long been anxious to establish a 
