, and stands to the clansman
in the place of parent, exacting their service, answerable for their
fines. There is but the one source of power and the one ground of
dignity--rank. The king married a chief-woman; she became his menial,
and must work with her hands on Messrs. Wightman's pier. The king
divorced her; she regained at once her former state and power. She
married the Hawaiian sailor, and behold the man is her flunkey and can
be shown the door at pleasure. Nay, and such low-born lords are even
corrected physically, and, like grown but dutiful children, must endure
the discipline.

We were intimate in one such household, that of Nei Takauti and Nan
Tok'; I put the lady first of necessity. During one week of fool's
paradise, Mrs. Stevenson had gone alone to the sea-side of the island
after shells. I am very sure the proceeding was unsafe; and she soon
perceived a man and woman watching her. Do what she would, her guardians
held her steadily in view; and when the afternoon began to fall, and
they thought she had stayed long enough, took her in charge, and by
signs and broken English ordered her home. On the way the lady drew from
her earring-hole a clay pipe, the husband lighted it, and it was handed
to my unfortunate wife, who knew not how to refuse the incommodious
favour; and when they were all come to our house, the pair sat down
beside her on the floor, and improved the occasion with prayer. From
that day they were our family friends; bringing thrice a day the
beautiful island garlands of white flowers, visiting us any evening, and
frequently carrying us down to their own maniap' in return, the woman
leading Mrs. Stevenson by the hand like one child with another.

Nan Tok', the husband, was young, extremely handsome, of the most
approved good humour, and suffering in his precarious station from
suppressed high spirits. Nei Takauti, the wife, was getting old; her
grown son by a former marriage had just hanged himself before his
mother's eyes in despair at a well-merited rebuke. Perhaps she had never
been beautiful, but her face was full of character, her eye of sombre
fire. She was a high chief-woman, but by a strange exception for a
person of her rank, was small, spare and sinewy, with lean small hands
and corded neck. Her full dress of an evening was invariably a white
chemise--and for adornment, green leaves (or sometimes white blossoms)
stuck in her hair and thrust through her huge earring-holes. The husba