Page:Hawaiians in Early Oregon.djvu/2

Rh the coast of the island of Hawaii. There the friendly ruler helped them to secure the needed supply of hogs, sugar cane and yams which they purchased for some trivial articles such as nails, trinkets and beads. When the captains returned to Hawaii for the winter they made the acquaintance of an island chieftain named Tianna, of whom Portlock writes with admiration and describes as "six feet, two inches in height and exceedingly well made, that a more perfect symetry and just proportion of shape is rarely met with." A copy of Tianna's painted portrait is in the book that Portlock wrote to give an account of his voyage. The next year, 1787, Captain John Meares, another of the fur traders, stopped at the islands, and after much pleading on the part of Tianna to grant his desire to see the world, carried him away with him to China, where he resided until Meares had fitted out two vessels for a second voyage to the northwest coast. Tianna sailed on one of these, the Iphigenia, commanded by William Douglas, in January, 1788, to Prince Williams Sound and afterwards joined Meares at Nootka. He was thus, probably, the first Hawaiian to visit America.

While at Nootka Sound Tianna met Maquinna, the Indian chief of that region. When he, with his fine colossal figure stood by Maquinna, who was short in stature, each regarded the other with disgust. Tianna held the customs of the Indians as detestable, as well he might, for, as Meares says, "the Owyhees were far superior in those things which we regard as com forts in life and in their approach to civilization." Meares also expressed a wish "that near half a million human beings inhabiting the Sandwich Islands may one day be ranked among the civilized subjects of the British Empire."

Tianna looked on with. interest while Meares built his vessel, the North West America, and was on board when it was launched at Nootka. As the props were pulled out from under, the boat shot into the water with Tianna clapping his hands and exclaiming, "Myty, Myty," by which he expressed great-