poles planted in the ground and covered over with matting, there were
the royal palace, which was not magnificent by any means: a public
store, of two stories, one of stone and the other of wood; two _morais_,
or idol temples, and a wharf. At the latter we found an old vessel, the
_Lady Bird_, which some American navigators had given in exchange for a
schooner; it was the only large vessel which King Tamehameha possessed;
and, besides, was worth nothing. As for schooners he had forty of them,
of from twenty to thirty tons burthen: these vessels served to transport
the tributes in kind paid by his vassals in the other islands. Before
the Europeans arrived among these savages, the latter had no means of
communication between one isle and another, but their canoes, and as
some of the islands are not in sight of each other, these voyages must
have been dangerous. Near the palace I found an Indian from Bombay,
occupied in making a twelve inch cable, for the use of the ship which I
have described.

Tamehameha kept constantly round his house a guard of twenty-four men.
These soldiers wore, by way of uniform, a long blue coat with yellow;
and each was armed with a musket. In front of the house, on an open
square, were placed fourteen four-pounders, mounted on their carriages.

The king was absolute, and judged in person the differences between his
subjects. We had an opportunity of witnessing a proof of it, the day
after our landing. A Portuguese having had a quarrel with a native, who
was intoxicated, struck him: immediately the friends of the latter, who
had been the aggressor after all, gathered in a crowd to beat down the
poor foreigner with stones; he fled as fast as he could to the house of
the king, followed by a mob of enraged natives, who nevertheless stopped
at some distance from the guards, while the Portuguese, all breathless,
crouched in a corner. We were on the esplanade in front of the palace