Page:Twenty years before the mast - Charles Erskine, 1896.djvu/255

 forward officers were brilliantly illuminated. The whole display was, no doubt, very interesting to the native king  and his family.

After a sumptuous dinner, which was specially prepared for the occasion, and served in the cabin, the king and his suite left the ship. As they took their departure the yards were manned, the marines presented arms, and  three cheers were given the king by all hands. He acknowledged the compliment by waving his cocked  hat. A few days later they again dined on board our ship, this time in the ward-room. It was said that the king liked wine and spirits, and made free use of them,  but on both of these occasions he drank very sparingly. Mrs. Kekauluohi, the king’s wife, was a very portly woman, and was said to be the handsomest on that group  of islands. She always looked smiling and happy.

While prospecting in the interior of this island, we came across a mound of human bones, a perfect Golgotha. It was one of their burying-places after a battle, for the place where the bones were found was known to  be one of their old battle-grounds. Some of the skeletons were in a perfect state of preservation.

Lahaina was the headquarters of the missionaries, and also a great resort for our whalers to wood and water  ship. There were no grog-shops in this place, and the captains knew it. For quiet on the Sabbath it would shame many a New England village. No natives were astir until meeting-time, and then they might be seen  only as they passed quietly to and from church.

After surveying Maui and several other islands, we got under way and stood for Oahu, where we arrived on the