42 
SANDWICH ISLANDS. 
become wild by the operation of the ten years’ tabu, im¬ 
posed after Captain Vancouver landed the parent stock, 
and had taught the arts of the dairy; a considerable profit 
was also derived from salting beef for the ships ; and perhaps 
no one reign of thirty years, in any country, had ever wit¬ 
nessed so great a change in the condition of the people as 
did that of Tamehameha in the Sandwich Islands. 
In the early part of his reign, feeling that the great and 
separate power of the priests was dangerous to his authority, 
especially since he was often absent from his capital, then 
fixed in Hawaii near Karakakua, he had taken upon him¬ 
self the office of priest as well as king. It is probable that 
a near acquaintance with the tricks of superstition, and the 
machinery of idolatry, had weaned him from the belief in 
his ancient gods, for before his death he often expressed his 
dissatisfaction at the clumsy and useless form of his own 
religion, and a desire to know what that of his civilized 
visitors was; but as he had no opportunity of expressing 
this desire to any persons more competent to inform him 
than masters of merchant vessels, or low adventurers set¬ 
tling in the Islands, he could obtain no satisfaction. Never¬ 
theless the effects of his doubts on the subject of his own 
faith, and his desire for a better, appeared in the conduct 
