Hawaii's Story by Hawaii's Queen (4 page)

From the school of Mr. and Mrs. Cooke I was sent to that of Rev. Mr. Beckwith, also one of the American missionaries. This was a day-school, and with it I was better satisfied than with a boarding-school.

I
WAS
a studious girl; and the acquisition of knowledge has been a passion with me during my whole life, one which has not lost its charm to the present day. In this respect I was quite different from my sister Bernice. She was one of the most beautiful girls I ever saw; the vision of her loveliness at that time can never be effaced from remembrance; like a striking picture once seen, it is stamped upon memory's page forever. She married in her eighteenth year. She was betrothed to Prince Lot, a grandchild of Kamehameha the Great; but when Mr. Charles R. Bishop pressed his suit, my sister smiled on him, and they were married. It was a happy marriage. When Mr. and Mrs. Bishop were first married they established their modest home at the termination of the beautiful Nuuanu Valley, directly opposite the tombs of the Hawaiian monarchs. They then began housekeeping in a small house on Alakea Street, near the site of the present Masonic Temple. At this time I was still living with Paki and Konia, and the house now standing and known as the Arlington Hotel was being erected by the chief for his residence. It was completed in 1851, and occupied by Paki until 1855, when he died. Then my sister and her husband moved to that residence, which still remained my home. It was there that the years of my girlhood were passed, after school-days were over, and the pleasant company we often had in that house will never cease to give interest to the spot.

Mr. Bishop was a popular and hospitable man, and his wife was as good as she was beautiful. The king, Kamehameha IV., Alexander Liholiho, would often appear informally at our doors with some of his friends; the evening would be passed in improvised dances, and the company always grew larger when it became known that we were thus enjoying ourselves; sometimes we would all adjourn to the house of some friend or neighbor from whom we had reason to expect like hospitality, and the night would be half gone ere we noticed the flight of time.

It was now that the young man who subsequently became my husband first became specially interested in me, and I in him, although we had been very near neighbors during our school-days, and we had seen each other more than once. A Mr. and Mrs. Johnston, a married couple of rather advanced age, established a day-school for children of both sexes in the house next to that of Mr. Cooke; their lot was separated from ours by a high fence of adobe, or sun-baked brick. The boys used to climb the fence on their side for the purpose of looking at the royal children, and amongst these curious urchins was John O. Dominis. His father was a sea-captain, who had originally come to Honolulu on Cape Horn voyages, and had been interested in trade both in China and in California. The ancestors of
Captain Dominis were from Italy; but Mrs. Dominis was an American, born at Boston, and was a descendant of one of the early English settlers. The house known as Washington Place was built by Captain Dominis for a family residence. As will appear shortly, Mr. Dominis was not my first or only suitor. My social and political importance would, quite apart from any personal qualities, render my alliance a matter of much solicitude to many. This is not, however, a subject on which I shall care to say more than is necessary.

On June 13, 1855, Paki, my adopted father, died. Soon after this the betrothal was announced of Alexander Liholiho and Emma Rooke. Some of those interested in the genealogies of the historic families of the Hawaiian chiefs, on hearing of this intended marriage, went to the king, and begged him to change his mind."And why should I?" asked Liholiho."Because, Your Majesty, there is no other chief equal to you in birth and rank but the adopted daughter of Paki." The king took offence at this counsel, and dismissed the objectors from his presence. Emma was descended from a half-brother of Kalaniopuu, the latter being first cousin to Kamehameha the Great. The royal wedding took place on June 19, 1856. The bridesmaids were Princess Victoria, myself, and Mary Pitman; the groomsmen were Prince Lot (afterwards Kamehameha V.), Prince William, and my brother, David Kalakaua. Honolulu was for the time the scene of great festivity. The ceremony filled the great Kawaiahao church; and thereafter there were picnics, parties,
luau
s
, and balls without number. Each of the nations represented on the island, even to the Chinese, gave its own special ball in honor of the wedding.

The king was returning from Moanalua with a large escort, a cavalcade of perhaps two hundred riders of both sexes. Amongst these was General J. O. Dominis, then a young man on the staff of Prince Lot. He was riding by my side when an awkward horseman forced his horse between us, and in the confusion Mr. Dominis was thrown from his horse and his leg broken. He gained the saddle, however, and insisted on accompanying me to my home, where he dismounted, and helped me from my horse. He then rode home; but by the time he had reached his own house his leg had become so swollen and painful that he could not dismount without assistance, and for some time, until the bone had become united, was confined to his house.

In the following November I accompanied Konia, my mother, to Hawaii, where she went for her health. We visited Kona, Kaei, and Kaleakekua Bay, the latter celebrated as the scene of the death of Captain Cook, the discoverer. The Princess Miriam Likelike (my own sister) was there brought up, and was well contented; but to one accustomed as I was to the bustle of the city and the life of the court, it seemed to be an excessively quiet and dismal place. After some months spent on Hawaii we went to Lahaina; there I received a letter from my brother Kalakaua, telling me that he was engaged to the Princess Victoria, and asking me to come to Honolulu. So, attended by five women, all from the families of high chiefs, I started for that city; but upon my arrival I found that the engagement was broken, for the Princess Victoria had gone to Wailua, and my brother had heard nothing from her for a fortnight : so I made preparations to return to Maui, but receiving an invitation to remain for a ball to be given by Prince Lot, I deferred my journey. At the ball the Princess Victoria appeared with her suite, and it was said was engaged to Prince William. Be that as it may, we all had a very gay time at the ball, which continued until daybreak.

At two o'clock the day following Prince Lot and Mr. Dominis, with the five ladies of noble birth, attended me to the old schooner Kekauluohi, by which I was to make the passage across the channel. My retinue was very large, and nearly filled the cabin. Prince William, who ascended the throne in 1874 under the title of Lunalilo, was the owner of the vessel, and was also at this time on board. He came to me, and insisted on my taking his cabin; and when the berth had been emptied of oranges with which I found it filled, his wearing apparel, boots, and other belongings also cleared out, I complied. He then asked me in the presence of my attendants why we shouldn't get married. There was an aged native preacher on board, Pikanele by name, who at once offered to perform the ceremony. But having heard the prince was engaged to his cousin Victoria, I did not consider it right to marry him on the impulse of the moment. When we arrived at Lahaina he escorted me to my home, there repeating his offer; and I took the matter into serious consideration, agreeing to write to him. He joined his father at Kona; and to that place I directed my letter, sending it by the schooner Kamamalu, which also was the Hawaiian name of the princess. It seemed that she declined to be the bearer of messages to her fickle swain, for the schooner was lost at sea. In the mean time Victoria Kamamalu had written to Prince William, reminding him of his obligations to her, and asking him to return to Honolulu, which he did, stopping at Lahaina on the way to tell me that, having received no answer from me, he supposed that I had rejected his proposal; but on my explanation of the matter, he again renewed his offer, and we became engaged. In May of that year my mother returned with me to Honolulu; but her health was not permanently improved, and on July 2, 1857, she died.

The death of Paki and Konia placed me more yet under the charge of Mr. and Mrs. Bishop, but Prince William claimed that our engagement was in full force. Mr. Bishop asked the king if he considered it a good match, to which Alexander replied that if I were his daughter he should not approve of it, but that if each of us were pleased, he should not oppose it, but advise us to marry. But there were certain other incidents which came to the surface ere long which led me to break the engagement. Neither Prince William Lunalilo nor the Princess Victoria was ever married.

A
LEXANDER LI
H
OLIHO,
known to history as Kamehameha IV., had all the characteristics of his race; and the strong, passionate nature of the Kamehamehas is shown in his benevolent as in his less commendable acts. To him was due the introduction of the Anglican Mission. He personally translated the English Prayer-Book into our language. He also founded the Queen's Hospital, as has already been noticed; and both the foreign and domestic affairs of his government were ably administered. Hon. R. C. Wylie continued as his Minister of Foreign Affairs throughout his reign.

In 1859, or just prior to my engagement to Mr. Dominis, a pleasant party was made up in Honolulu for an excursion to the other islands, on which I went, being, as indeed I always was at this time, under the special charge of Mrs. Bishop. We visited the volcano on Hawaii, and descended to the city of Hilo, on whose beautiful bay was then lying the United States ship Levant. At this place we were joined by the king with his party; and having many most agreeable acquaintances amongst the naval officers, the time sped quickly in social pleasures. We lived in a large grass house, one side of which was occupied by the ladies and the other by the gentlemen, while the centre was a room used for banquet-hall or ballroom, besides answering the purpose of separating the two lateral apartments so widely that no conversation could be heard from one to the other. When any of the royal party had occasion to go from one place to another, we were drawn in carriages of native construction, the people themselves furnishing the power usually supplied by horses. Sometimes we were stuck in some mud-hole or water-course, from which the most determined efforts of our devoted followers could not extricate us; and it was then necessary to have a horse led to the side of the vehicle to take us off on horseback. But we were light-hearted, merry, and happy; the naval officers were perfect gentlemen, and gallant in their attentions. The king enjoyed the pleasures to which his presence and that of others of the royal line gave a great charm. He even mischievously prevented us from taking an affectionate adieu of our friends aboard the Levant by suddenly signalling that we were to be at once on board of the Kilauea; and that steamer started without as much as a"By your leave, sir," to the naval commander. At Lahaina the whole party left the ship, and at that port was further increased by the accession of the king's friends and retainers.

The next trip (1860) proposed by His Majesty was to the extinct volcano of Healeala, and orders were given that we should all go in boats from Lahaina to Wailuku. It was a beautiful sight; the waters were calm, each boat was ornamented with the Hawaiian flag, the royal standard fluttered from that of the king, and as we coasted along the shores, we could see the people on the land following our course and interested in our progress; there were, I think, twelve boats in all. We arrived without accident, ascended the mountain, and passed a night on the border of the crater. We had our tents, and there was shelter in the caves and crevices for the remainder of the party. All passed off gayly. There was little sleep, however, some of us being afflicted with asthmatic attacks which the excessive rarity of the air at that altitude made very severe. Such was my portion; but as I sat up, not daring to lie down lest I might lose my breath, I could hear the merry sounds of the singing and dancing which from one tent or another was going on around me.

The first halt in our enjoyment was when word was received that the little Prince of Hawaii, then but a little more than a year old, was ill.

The king was deaf to the entreaties of the queen to be allowed to go directly to her child, because he thought it would delay his own departure and arrival at the bedside of his boy. Fortunately the illness passed away without serious consequences; yet it seemed the first break in our festivities, and was followed by an event of a most tragical nature.

We descended the mountain and returned to Lahaina, where I, accompanied by Mrs. Bishop, left them, and went back to Honolulu. The first news we received was that the king in a fit of passion had shot and mortally wounded one of the party, his own secretary, Mr. H. A. Neilson. After the occurrence all that the tenderest of brothers could have done was proffered by the king to the wounded man; but after lingering for some months, Mr. Neilson died. No legal notice of the event was in any way taken; no person would have been foolhardy enough to propose it. It is not my purpose to defend the right of the king to this execution of summary vengeance, especially as it was done in a moment of anger; yet beyond the sadness of the act, it has a certain bearing on this sketch of my life as one of the descendants from the ruling families of Hawaii.

There were causes which were apparent to any of our people for something very like righteous anger on the part of the king. His Majesty was trying to make us each and all happy; yet even during moments of relaxation, undue familiarity, absence of etiquette, rudeness, or any other form which implied or suggested disrespect to royalty in any manner whatsoever, would never be tolerated by any one of the native chiefs of the Hawaiian people. To allow any such breach of good manners to pass unnoticed would be looked upon by his own retainers as belittling to him, and they would be the first to demand the punishment of the offender. It was in this case far too severe. No one realized that more than the king himself, who suffered much distress for his victim, and was with difficulty dissuaded from the abdication of his throne. The temper of the Kamehamehas had descended to the young prince, and was also the cause of his death. For when the child was about four years old, he became dissatisfied with a pair of boots, and burst into an ungovernable fit of passion. His father sought to cool him off by putting the boy under an open faucet of cold, running water. The lit-tie one appeared to be unharmed, but later in the day broke down with nervous weeping, and could not be comforted. Then it was discovered that the cold douche and shock had brought on an attack of brain fever. From this he did not recover, but died on the 27th of August, 1862. The king and queen had the sympathy of all parties in their bereavement; but Kamehameha IV. completely lost his interest in public life, living in the utmost possible retirement until his death.

It may be in place here to notice the opening of the reign of Kamehameha IV.'s successor. It has already been seen that the right of life and death was unchallenged; that whatever it may be in other countries, as late as an epoch thirty years in the past it belonged to the highest chief of the Hawaiian people. In like manner it may be said that the whole people owed its national life to the throne. The first constitution was given to the realm in 1840, and was a voluntary act on the part of the king, Kamehameha III. The second succeeded it in 1852. Both of these were doubtless drafted under the supervision and advice of the missionaries, of whom, even at the latter date, the Hawaiian nation was beginning to feel a little justifiable jealousy. So when Prince Lot came to the throne in 1863, under the title of Kamehameha V., his first official act was to refuse to take the oath to maintain the existing constitution. His success as Minister of the Interior under his brother had been remarkable, and his character was said to resemble that of Kamehameha the Great; it is presumable, therefore, that he understood the needs of his people better than those of foreign birth and alien affinities. In the month of May, 1864, the king issued a call for a constitutional convention, subsequently making a tour of the islands to explain his plans to the electors. In July of that year the convention assembled in Honolulu; but its time being given to what Kamehameha considered useless deliberations instead of business, on Aug. 13 he declared the convention dissolved, dismissed the delegates, publicly abrogated the constitution of 1852, and one week after that date he proclaimed a new constitution of his own devising, under which Hawaii was happily ruled for twenty-three years. There will be no disputing the fact that this was a period of increasing prosperity; yet until the late King Kalakaua was constrained by the foreign element to abrogate this constitution (which my brother did much against his own will and better judgment in 1887), all parties had lived together in harmony throughout the kingdom of the Hawaiian Islands, under a constitution devised and promulgated by one man, and he of the race of the Hawaiian chiefs. I hope this fact will be recalled when I come to speak of the history of the reign of my brother Kalakaua, and my own administration of public affairs. Let it be repeated : the promulgation of a new constitution, adapted to the needs of the times and the demands of the people, has been an indisputable prerogative of the Hawaiian monarchy.