The American officers, naval and military, were received by
the same loud, hospitable old whaling captain who entertained the
Duke of Edinburgh some years ago here, and to judge from the
hilarious sounds which came down the road from his house, they had
what they would call "a good time." I had seen Lunalilo in state at
Honolulu, but it was much more interesting to see him here, and this
royalty is interesting in itself, as a thing on sufferance, standing
between this helpless nationality and its absorption by America.
The king is a very fine-looking man of thirty-eight, tall, well
formed, broad-chested, with his head well set on his shoulders, and
his feet and hands small. His appearance is decidedly commanding
and aristocratic: he is certainly handsome even according to our
notions. He has a fine open brow, significant at once of brains and
straightforwardness, a straight proportionate nose, and a good
mouth. The slight tendency to Polynesian overfulness about his lips
is concealed by a well-shaped moustache. He wears whiskers cut in
the English fashion. His eyes are large, dark-brown of course, and
equally of course, he has a superb set of teeth. Owing to a slight
fulness of the lower eyelid, which Queen Emma also has, his eyes
have a singularly melancholy expression, very alien, I believe, to
his character.
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