We lunched on shore, and afterwards went with Mr. Chambré,
navigating-lieutenant of the 'Fantôme,' to the new Government
buildings. There we found an excellent English library, and an
interesting collection of books printed in English and Hawaiian, on
alternate pages, including alphabets, grammars, the old familiar
nursery tales, &c. There is also a good, though small museum,
containing specimens of beautiful corals, shells, seaweeds, and
fossils; all the ancient native weapons, such as bows, arrows, swords,
and spears--now, alas! no longer procurable--sling-stones, and stones
used in games, back-scratchers, hair-ornaments made of sharks' teeth,
tortoise-shell cups and spoons, calabashes and bowls. There were some
most interesting though somewhat horrible necklaces made of hundreds
of braids of human hair cut from the heads of victims slain by the
chiefs themselves; from these braids was suspended a monstrous hook
carved from a large whale's tooth, called a Paloola, regarded by the
natives as a sort of idol. There are models of ancient and modern
canoes--the difference between which is not very great,--paddles,
inlaid with mother-of-pearl, old war-masks, and dresses still in use
in the less frequented islands, anklets of human teeth, and many other
things far too numerous to mention. The most interesting of all were,
perhaps, the old feather war cloaks, like the ancient _togas_ of the
Romans. They are made of thousands of yellow, red, and black feathers,
of the _oo, niamo,_ and _eine_, taken singly and fastened into a sort
of network of string, so as to form a solid fabric, like the richest
velvet or plush, that glitters like gold in the sunlight. The helmets,
made of the same feathers, but worked on to a frame of perfect Grecian
shape, similar to those seen in the oldest statuary or on the Elgin
marbles, are even more artistic and elegant. Whence came the idea and
design? Untutored savages could scarcely have evolved them out of