420 
MISSIONARY TOUR 
sent the Nio for a cargo of hogs, to meet the demand 
for these animals, which he expected would follow their 
arrival. 
About noon on the 28th, Mr. Bishop reached To- 
waihae; and in the evening of the 30th, they received 
the unexpected information that the brig would sail 
that evening: Messrs. Bishop and Goodrich therefore 
went on boad, leaving Mr. Thurston at Towaihae to 
preach to the people there on the next day, which was 
the Sabbath, and afterwards join the vessel at the north 
point of the island, where they were going to take in 
hogs for Karaimoku, to whom the division of Kohala 
belonged, though the island in general was under the 
jurisdiction of Kuakini the governor. Their system of 
government is rather complex; and having occasion¬ 
ally mentioned several of its leading members, some 
further account of it will perhaps be acceptable. 
The government of the Sandwich Islands is an abso¬ 
lute monarchy. The supreme authority is hereditary. 
The rank of the principal and inferior chiefs, the offices 
of the priests, and other situations of honour, influ¬ 
ence, and emolument, descend from father to son, and 
often continue through many generations in the same 
family, though the power of nomination to every situ¬ 
ation of dignity and trust is vested in the king; and 
persons by merit, or royal favour, frequently rise from 
comparatively humble rank to the highest station in the 
islands, as in the instance of Karaimoku, sometimes 
called by foreigners, William Pitt. This individual, 
from being a chief of the third or fourth rank, has long- 
been prime minister, in rank second only to the king, 
and having, in fact, the actual government of the whole 
of the Sandwich Islands. 
