The suite followed in the other boats,--brown men and
white, governors, ministers, and court dignitaries, in Windsor
uniforms, but with an added resplendency of plumes, epaulettes, and
gold lace. As soon as Lunalilo reached the California, the yards of
the three ships were manned, and amidst cheering which rent the air,
and the deafening thunder of a royal salute from sixty-three guns of
heavy calibre, the popular descendant of seventy generations of
sceptred savages stepped on board the flag-ship's deck. No higher
honours could have been paid to the Emperor "of all the Russias." I
have seen few sights more curious than that of the representative of
the American Republic standing bare-headed before a coloured man,
and the two mightiest empires on earth paying royal honours to a
Polynesian sovereign, whose little kingdom in the North Pacific is
known to many of us at home only as "the group of islands where
Captain Cook was killed." Ah! how lovely this Queen of Oceans is!
Blue, bright, balm-breathing, gentle in its supreme strength,
different both in motion and colour from the coarse "vexed
Atlantic!"
STEAMER KILAUEA, Jan. 29th.
I was turning homewards, enjoying the prospect of a quiet week in
Honolulu, when Mr.
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