I very soon ceased to notice the incongruous
elements, which were supplied chiefly by the Americans present.
There were Republicans by birth and nature, destitute of traditions
of loyalty or reverence for aught on earth; who bore on their faces
not only republicanism, but that quintessence of puritan
republicanism which hails from New England; and these were subjects
of a foreign king, nay, several of them office-holders who had taken
the oath of allegiance, and from whose lips "His Majesty, Your
Majesty," flowed far more copiously than from ours which are "to the
manner born."
On the king's appearance, the cheering was tremendous,--regular
British cheering, well led, succeeded by that which is not British,
"three cheers and a tiger," but it was "Hi, hi, hi, hullah!" Every
hat was off, every handkerchief in air, tears in many eyes,
enthusiasm universal, for the people were come to welcome the king
of their choice; the prospective restorer of the Constitution
"trampled upon" by Kamehameha V., "the kind chief," who was making
them welcome to his presence after the fashion of their old feudal
lords. When the cheering had subsided, the eighty boys of
Missionary Lyman's School, who, dressed in white linen with crimson
leis, were grouped in a hollow square round the flagstaff, sang the
Hawaiian national anthem, the music of which is the same as ours.
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