ng is certain, however. If the Islands ever offer themselves to any
foreign power, it will be to the United States. Their people, foreign as
well as native, look to us as their neighbors and friends; and the king
last summer blurted out one day when too much wine had made him imprudent,
this truth: that if annexation came, it must be to the United States.

As I write a negotiation has been opened with the United States
Government, for the purpose of offering us Pearl River in exchange for a
reciprocity treaty. Pearl River is an extensive, deep, and well-protected
bay, about ten miles from Honolulu. It would answer admirably for a naval
station; and if the United States were a second-rate power likely to be
bullied by other nations, we might need a naval station in the Pacific
Ocean. In our present condition, when no single power dares to make war
with us, and when, unless we become shamelessly aggressive, no alliance of
European powers against us for purposes of war is possible, the chief use
of distant naval stations appears to me to be as convenient out-of-the-way
places for wasting the public money. Pearl River would be an admirable
spot for a dozen pleasant sinecures, and the expenditure of three or four
millions of money. It seems to me, therefore, that it would be a dear
bargain. For the accommodation of merchant steamers and ships and their
repair, Honolulu offers sufficient facilities. There are ingenious
American mechanics there who have even taken a frigate upon a temporary
dry-dock, and repaired her hull.

[Illustration: HULA-HULA, OR DANCING-GIRLS.]

But justice, kindly feeling, and a due regard for our future interests in
the Pacific Ocean ought to induce us to establish at once a reciprocity
treaty with the Hawaiian Government. We should lose but little revenue;
and should make good that loss by the greater market which would be opened
for our own products, in the Islands. Such a treaty would bring more
capital to the Islands, increase their prosperity, and, at the same time,
bind them still more closely and permanently to us. It would pave the way
to annexation, if that should ever become advisable.

The politics of the Hawaiian Kingdom are not very exciting. In those
fortunate Isles the Legislature troubles itself chiefly about the horse
and dog tax. The late king, who was of an irascible temper, did not always
treat his faithful Commons with conspicuous civility. He sometimes told
them that they had t