the human figure is seldom to be seen amidst this melancholy
stillness, except when the scholars, conducted by their teachers, repair
to the church. Every sort of gaiety is forbidden.

Lord Byron had brought with him from England a variety of magic
lanterns, puppet-shows, and such like toys, and was making preparations
to exhibit them in public, for the entertainment of the people, when an
order arrived from Bengham to prevent the representation, because it did
not become God-fearing Christians to take pleasure in such vain
amusements. The nobleman, not wishing to dispute the point, gave up his
good-natured intentions.

That a people naturally so lively, should readily submit to such gloomy
restrictions at the command of their rulers, proves how easily a wise
government might introduce among them the blessings of rational
civilization. Well might Karemaku exclaim, "Tameamea, thou hast died too
soon!" Had this monarch doubled the usual age of man, and accorded his
protection to such a reformer as Stewart, the Sandwich Islanders might
by this time have acquired the respect of all other nations, instead of
retrograding in the arts of civilization, and assuming under compulsion
the hypocritical appearance of an affected devotion.

In taking a walk with an American merchant established here, I met a
naked old man with a book in his hand, whom my companion addressed, and
knowing him for a determined opponent of the new system, expressed his
surprise at his occupation, and enquired how long he had been studying
his alphabet. With a roguish laugh which seemed intended to conceal a
more bitter feeling, first looking round to make sure that he should
not be overheard, he replied, "Don't think that I am learning to read. I
have only bought the book to look into it, that Kahumanna may think I am
following the general example; she would not otherwise suffer me to
approach her, and what would then become of a poor, miserable, old man
like me? What is the use of the odious B A, Ba? Will it make our yams
and potatoes grow? No such thing; our country people are obliged to
neglect their fields for it, and scarcely half the land is tilled. What
will be the consequence? There will be a famine by and by, and "Pala,
Pala" will not fill a hungry man."

It is doubtless praiseworthy in a government to provide for the
instruction of the people, but to force it upon them by such
unreasonable measures as those adopted by Kahumanna and her couns