here that the greatest marvels were to be found!
Fishes, orange, blue and scarlet; corals, seaweeds of every colour,
creatures of every form and shape, whose names no white man knew.
Afterwards, the missionaries learned that volcanoes were scattered over
the islands, some extinct and only showing wide black mouths, others
still blazing and throwing up jets of burning lava, which even in the
sunshine take on a scarlet hue, and in the night gleam a yellowish
white. Besides these wonders, there were also the curious customs of the
people to be studied; and it was very necessary to know these, or a man
might break the law and incur the penalty of death without having the
slightest idea that he was doing any harm. For instance, he might go to
pay a friendly visit to a chief, on whom the shadow of the visitor might
fall; he might lose his way, and seeing a hut surrounded by a palisade
would hasten to ask the shortest road to his tent, not guessing that he
was entering the sacred home of a chieftain. If he offered a tired child
a drink of cocoa-nut milk or a ripe banana, and she took it, he had
brought about her death as certainly as if he had put the rope round her
neck. But shortly before the arrival of the Americans a great king had
abolished these iron rules, though no doubt they still lingered in
out-of-the-way places.

The reigning monarch, son of the late king, was bathing in the
marvellous blue sea with his five wives when a messenger brought him
word that the white strangers had landed. Full of politeness, like all
the islanders, the king at once hastened to greet them, followed by the
ladies. The missionaries felt a little awkward, which was foolish, as
the Hawaiians seldom wore clothes, being more comfortable without them;
but the king noticed that his guests were ill at ease, and determined
that he would be careful not to hurt their feelings again. So when they
had taken leave of him, he sent for one of his servants and bade him
seek for some clothes belonging to a trader who had died in the palace.
A pair of silk stockings was found and a tall and curly brimmed hat,
such as in pictures you may see the duke of Wellington wearing after the
battle of Waterloo. The king smiled and nodded, and the very next
afternoon he put on the hat and the stockings, and highly pleased with
himself set out to call upon his visitors. The missionary whose tent he
entered was sitting inside with his wife, having just put up in one
corn