Typee: A Romance of the South Seas
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CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
KING MEHEVI--ALLUSION TO HIS HAWAIIAN MAJESTY--CONDUCT OF MARHEYO ANDMEHEVI IN CERTAIN DELICATE MATTERS--PECULIAR SYSTEM OF MARRIAGE--NUMBEROF POPULATION--UNIFORMITY--EMBALMING--PLACES OF SEPULTURE--FUNERALOBSEQUIES AT NUKUHEVA-NUMBER OF INHABITANTS IN TYPEE--LOCATION OF THEDWELLINGS--HAPPINESS ENJOYED IN THE VALLEY--A WARNING--SOME IDEAS WITHREGARD TO THE PRESENT STATE OF THE HAWAIIANS--STORY OF A MISSIONARY'SWIFE--FASHIONABLE EQUIPAGES AT OAHU--REFLECTIONS
KING MEHEVI!--A goodly sounding title--and why should I not bestowit upon the foremost man in the valley of Typee? The republicanmissionaries of Oahu cause to be gazetted in the Court Journal,published at Honolulu, the most trivial movement of 'his graciousmajesty' King Kammehammaha III, and 'their highnesses the princes of theblood royal'.* And who is his 'gracious majesty', and what thequality of this blood royal'?--His 'gracious majesty' is a fat, lazy,negro-looking blockhead, with as little character as power. He haslost the noble traits of the barbarian, without acquiring the redeeminggraces of a civilized being; and, although a member of the HawiianTemperance Society, is a most inveterate dram-drinker.
*Accounts like these are sometimes copied into English and Americanjournals. They lead the reader to infer that the arts and customs ofcivilized life are rapidly refining the natives of the Sandwich Islands.But let no one be deceived by these accounts. The chiefs swagger aboutin gold lace and broadcloth, while the great mass of the common peopleare nearly as primitive in their appearance as in the days of Cook. Inthe progress of events at these islands, the two classes are recedingfrom each other; the chiefs are daily becoming more luxurious andextravagant in their style of living, and the common people more andmore destitute of the necessaries and decencies of life. But the endto which both will arrive at last will be the same: the one are fastdestroying themselves by sensual indulgences, and the other arefast being destroyed by a complication of disorders, and the want ofwholesome food. The resources of the domineering chiefs are wrung fromthe starving serfs, and every additional bauble with which they bedeckthemselves is purchased by the sufferings of their bondsmen; so that themeasure of gew-gaw refinement attained by the chiefs is only an indexto the actual state in which the greater portion of the population liegrovelling.