sea. And some ten miles
from where I walked, Cook was adored as a deity; his bones, when he was
dead, were cleansed for worship; his entrails devoured in a mistake by
rambling children.

A day of session in the Hookena Court-house equally surprised me. The
judge, a very intelligent, serious Hawaiian, sat behind a table, taking
careful notes; two policemen, with their bright metal badges, standing
attention at his back or bustling forth on errands. The plaintiff was a
Portuguese. For years, he had kept store and raised cattle in the
district, without trouble or dispute. His store stood always open, it
was standing so seven miles away at the moment of the case; and when his
cattle strayed, they were duly impounded and restored to him on payment
of one shilling. But recently a gentleman of great acuteness and a
thousand imperfect talents had married into the family of a neighbouring
proprietor; consecutively on which event the store-keeper's cattle began
to be detained and starved, the fine rose to half a dollar, and lastly a
cow had disappeared. The Portuguese may have been right or wrong: he was
convinced the new-comer was the main-spring of the change; called a suit
in consequence against the father-in-law;--and it was the son-in-law who
appeared for the defence. I saw him there, seated at his ease, with
spectacles on brow; still young, much of a gentleman in looks, and
dressed in faultless European clothes; and presently, for my good
fortune, he rose to address the court. It appears he has already stood
for the Hawaiian parliament; but the people (I was told) "did not think
him honest," and he was defeated. Honesty, to our ways of thought,
appears a trifle in a candidate; and I think we have few constituencies
to refuse so great a charmer. I understood but a few dozen words, yet I
heard the man with delight, followed the junctures of his argument, knew
when he was enumerating points in his own favour, when he was admitting
those against him, when he was putting a question _per absurdum_, when
(after the due pause) he smilingly replied to it. There was no haste, no
heat, no prejudice; with a hinted gesture, with a semitone of
intonation, the speaker lightly set forth and underlined the processes
of reason; he could not shift a foot nor touch his spectacles, but what
persuasion radiated in the court--it is impossible to conceive a style
of oratory more rational or civilised. The point to which he spoke was
pretty in itse