THROUGH -HAWAII. 
137 
leave of his friends, before going, as he expected, to 
battle. Nothing can surpass their efforts on some of 
these occasions, when their addresses abound with 
figures like the following: “Our ranks are rocks in 
the ocean, unmoved by the dashing waves; each war¬ 
rior moves a sea porcupine, whom none dare handle.— 
Let the king’s troops advance, and they shall rise 
before his enemies as the lofty breadfruit rises before 
the slender grass.—In the combat the warrior shall 
stand like the deep-rooted palm, and nod over the 
heads of their enemies, as the tall cocoa-nut nods over 
the bending reed.” On urging the attack by n|ght, 
“ Our torches’ glare shall surprise them like the light¬ 
ning’s flash; and our shouts, in the instantaneous on¬ 
set, terrify like bursting thunder.” The effect was 
greatly heightened by the conciseness of their language, 
and the euphony with which it abounds; and probably 
on one side of the place where they were assembled, 
the rocks arose, and the waves dashed; while on the 
other, groves of stately bread-fruit trees appeared, or 
towering cocoa-nuts, seventy or eighty feet high, waved 
over their heads. 
When war was declared, the king and warrior chiefs, 
together with the priests, fixed the time and place for 
commencing, and the manner of carrying it on. In the 
mean time, the Runapai (messengers of war) were sent 
to the districts and villages under their authority, to 
require the services of their tenants, in numbers pro¬ 
portionate to the magnitude of the expedition. These 
were ordered to come with their weapons, candle nuts 
for torches, light calabashes for water, dried fish, or 
other portable provisions. The summons was in gene¬ 
ral obeyed with alacrity, and as their spears, clubs, 
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