And next comes his Grace the Lord Bishop of Honolulu, the chief dignitary of the “Established Church”—­for when the American Presbyterian missionaries had completed the reduction of the nation to a compact condition of Christianity, native royalty stepped in and erected the grand dignity of an “Established (Episcopal) Church” over it, and imported a cheap ready-made Bishop from England to take charge.  The chagrin of the missionaries has never been comprehensively expressed, to this day, profanity not being admissible.

Next comes his Excellency the Minister of Public Instruction.

Next, their Excellencies the Governors of Oahu, Hawaii, etc., and after them a string of High Sheriffs and other small fry too numerous for computation.

Then there are their Excellencies the Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary of his Imperial Majesty the Emperor of the French; her British Majesty’s Minister; the Minister Resident, of the United States; and some six or eight representatives of other foreign nations, all with sounding titles, imposing dignity and prodigious but economical state.

Imagine all this grandeur in a play-house “kingdom” whose population falls absolutely short of sixty thousand souls!

The people are so accustomed to nine-jointed titles and colossal magnates that a foreign prince makes very little more stir in Honolulu than a Western Congressman does in New York.

And let it be borne in mind that there is a strictly defined “court costume” of so “stunning” a nature that it would make the clown in a circus look tame and commonplace by comparison; and each Hawaiian official dignitary has a gorgeous vari-colored, gold-laced uniform peculiar to his office—­no two of them are alike, and it is hard to tell which one is the “loudest.”  The King had a “drawing-room” at stated intervals, like other monarchs, and when these varied uniforms congregate there—­weak-eyed people have to contemplate the spectacle through smoked glass.  Is there not a gratifying contrast between this latter-day exhibition and the one the ancestors of some of these magnates afforded the missionaries the Sunday after the old-time distribution of clothing?  Behold what religion and civilization have wrought!

CHAPTER LXVIII.

While I was in Honolulu I witnessed the ceremonious funeral of the King’s sister, her Royal Highness the Princess Victoria.  According to the royal custom, the remains had lain in state at the palace thirty days, watched day and night by a guard of honor.  And during all that time a great multitude of natives from the several islands had kept the palace grounds well crowded and had made the place a pandemonium every night with their howlings and wailings, beating of tom-toms and dancing of the (at other times) forbidden “hula-hula” by half-clad maidens to the music of songs of questionable decency chanted in honor of the deceased.  The printed programme of the funeral procession interested me at the time; and after what I have just said of Hawaiian grandiloquence in the matter of “playing empire,” I am persuaded that a perusal of it may interest the reader: