On the
following evening the body was placed on a shrouded bier, and was
escorted in solemn procession by the government officials and the
late king's staff, to the Iolani Palace, there to lie in state. It
was a cloudless moonlight; not a leaf stirred or bird sang, and the
crowd, consisting of several thousands, opened to the right and left
to let the dismal death-train pass, in a stillness which was only
broken by the solemn tramp of the bearers.
The next day the corpse lay in state, in all the splendour that the
islands could bestow, dressed in the clothes the king wore when he
took the oath of office, and resting on the royal robe of yellow
feathers, a fathom square. {468} Between eight and ten thousand
persons passed through the palace during the morning, and foreigners
as well as natives wept tears of genuine grief; while in the palace
grounds the wailing knew no intermission, and many of the natives
spent hours in reciting kanakaus in honour of the deceased. At
midnight the king's remains were placed in a coffin, his aged
father, His Highness Kanaina, who was broken-hearted for his loss,
standing by. When the body was raised from the feather robe, he
ordered that it should be wrapped in it, and thus be deposited in
its resting place.
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