At ten punctually, Lunalilo, Governor Lyman, the sheriff of Hawaii,
the royal chamberlain, and the adjutant-general, walked up to the
court-house, and the king took his place, standing in the lower
verandah with his suite about him. All the foreigners were either
on the upper balcony, or on the stairs leading to it, on which, to
get the best possible view of the spectacle, I stood for three
mortal hours. The attendant gentlemen were well dressed, but wore
"shocking bad hats;" and the king wore a sort of shooting suit, a
short brown cut-away coat, an ash-coloured waistcoat and ash-
coloured trousers with a blue stripe. He stood bareheaded. He
dressed in this style in order that the natives might attend the
reception in every-day dress, and not run the risk of spoiling their
best clothes by Hilo torrents. The dress of the king and his
attendants was almost concealed by wreaths of ohia blossoms and
festoons of maile, some of them two yards long, which had been
thrown over them, and which bestowed a fantastic glamour on the
otherwise prosaic inelegance of their European dress. But indeed
the spectacle, as a whole, was altogether poetical, as it was an
ebullition of natural, national, human feeling, in which the heart
had the first place.
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