THROUGH HAWAII. 
309 
seemed near dying. We regretted that we had no 
medicine proper to administer either to the suffering 
chief or his child. 
The wretched picture of uncivilized society, which 
this family exhibited, powerfully affected our minds. 
Maaro’s house, like that of the chiefs in general, was 
large, and accommodated many of his friends and de¬ 
pendants. On one side near the door, he lay on a mat 
which was spread on the ground. Two or three domes¬ 
tics sat around, one of them holding a small calabash 
of water, and another with a kahiri was fanning away 
the flies. Near the centre of the house, on another 
mat, spread also on the ground, lay the pale emaciated 
child, its features distorted with pain, and its feeble 
voice occasionally uttering the most piteous cries. A 
native girl sat beside it, driving away the flies, and 
holding a cocoa-nut shell in her hand, containing a 
little poe, with which she had been endeavouring to 
feed it. In the same place, and nearly between the 
father and the child, two of Maaro’s wives, and some 
other chief women, were seated on the ground, playing 
at cards, laughing and jesting over their game. We 
tried to enter into conversation with them, but they 
were too intent on the play to pay any attention to 
what we said. The visitors or attendants of the 
chief sat in groups in different parts of the house, 
some carelessly singing, others engaged in earnest 
conversation. 
We could not forbear contrasting the scene here pre¬ 
sented, with a domestic circle in civilized and Christian 
society, under similar circumstances, where all the alle¬ 
viations which the tenderest sympathy could impart, 
would be promptly tendered to the suffering indivi- 
