ion had taken her many weeks to complete; she made some progress
in it every day; but what was once inserted she never altered; the same
clean page that had been transmitted to me, being the identical one on
which the letter was commenced.

It was soon known in Hanaruro that the Queen had written to me; and as
all she did was imitated, I was presently in a fair way for being
honoured with many similar letters. All my intended correspondents,
however, would require at least as much time to express their thoughts
on paper, as Nomahanna had taken; I must therefore have waited for their
favours much longer than would have been convenient.

According to Nomahanna's request, I sent off an officer with the shallop
to fetch her: some hours, however, elapsed before she came, her
Majesty's toilette having, said my officer, occupied all this time. When
at length it was completed, she desired him to give her his arm and
conduct her to the shallop. This is another imitation of European
customs.

For a lady of the Sandwich Islands, Nomahanna was this day very
elegantly attired. A peach-coloured dress of good silk, trimmed at the
bottom with black lace, covered her Majesty's immense figure, which a
very broad many-coloured sash, with a large bow in the front, divided
exactly into two halves. She had a collar round her neck of native
manufacture, made of beautiful red and yellow feathers; and on her head
a very fine Leghorn hat, ornamented with artificial flowers from Canton,
and trimmed round the edge with a pendant flounce of black lace; her
chin lying modestly hidden behind a whole bed of flowers that bloomed
on her mountain bosom. In somewhat striking contrast to all this finery
were the clumsily accoutred feet, and stout, ill-shaped, brown,
unstockinged legs, which the shortness of her Majesty's petticoats,
proportioned originally to the stature of a European belle, displayed to
a rather unsightly extent.

As yet, the shoemaker's craft does not flourish in the Sandwich Islands;
so that all the shoes and boots worn there are imported from Europe and
America. But as neither of these Continents can produce such a pair of
feet as those of Queen Nomahanna, the attempt to force them into any
ready-made shoes would be hopeless; and her Majesty is therefore
obliged, if she would not go bare-foot, which she does not consider
altogether decorous, to content herself with a pair of men's galloshes.
Such trifles as these were, however, ben