As they marched, a sudden and very violent earthquake and eruption of the mountain took place, attended with noises exceeding thunder in loudness; the earth shook and rocked beneath their reeling feet, and a shower of ashes was thrown high into the air, filling a circuit of many miles. The foremost of the three divisions appears to have been nearest to the centre of energy; a few of their number were scorched to death, but the great majority escaped. The division in the rear were subjected to the same phenomena, which were quickly over, and the people hastened forward, to come up with their companions who were in advance. As they approached the central division they discovered that the people had halted,—some of them apparently calmly sleeping on the ground, whilst others were sitting upright with their wives and children embraced in their arms, or pressing their faces together in their usual manner of salutation. They spoke to them, but there was no reply; they touched them, but there was no motion; they examined their comrades more closely, and discovered that they were in the camp of Death. Every human being of those four hundred was stiff and lifeless, killed by the mephitic vapours that had issued from the mountain. One living thing alone was left among them. A hog was turning up the earth in search of roots, indifferent to that terrible scene of death in life.

CHAPTER X.

HISTORICAL SKETCH-KAMÉHAMÉHA

INEPTNESS FOR THE LYRE.

THE CONQUEROR-

THE

HE force under Keona, dispirited and reduced in number, were soon afterwards met by Kaiana and by Kaméhaméha, who had now (1791) returned to Hawaii, and were routed with but feeble resistance. Keona fled to Hilo and led a vagrant life there for two years. In 1793 he determined to throw himself on the conqueror's clemency. Having obtained permission of Kaiana to pass to the shore, he proceeded to the coast with a few friends, that he might sail round to a bay on the north-west of the island, where Kaméhaméha was at that time. Kaiana lent them canoes for the purpose, and they went on, fanned by alternate hopes and fears, stopping at various villages along the coast; and at each place where Keona touched, the people brought presents of food and other things, and by every means demonstrated their affection for the chief. Some wept when they saw him, for joy at his visit; others wept in sadness at his departure, with foreboding fears for what his fate might be. He was casting a hazardous die in surrendering himself to his enemy. Generosity is a frequent halo of the most savage warfare; but here too much of the conqueror's future success and peace depended on his rival's existence or death. Nevertheless, whilst Keona remained at Paraoa, the last village at

which he landed, he received comforting assurances of Kaméhaméha's good-will towards him. On the third morning he took leave of his friends there, and directed his canoe towards Kawaihae.

Kaméhaméha was encamped in that bay; and, on the arrival of Keona and his doomed companions, was standing with his chiefs on the beach,-Ellis adds, with the intention of protecting him. Jarves says that the King had determined to rid himself of a valiant competitor, and one who had been so prolific a source of trouble to him. The evidence is conflicting; but the fact is of importance in the estimate we make of the man's character. Possibly he hesitated. His warriors knew enough of his feelings towards his rival generally; and when a monarch finds the life of a Beckett inconvenient, there will not be wanting Tracys to turn his indecision into resolve and his desire into action.

Whatever the King and other chiefs might determine, there was one who had no doubts as to the expediency of Keona's death. This was our former acquaintance, Keeaumoku,—the yellow-back crab.' He was the Joab of the piece; having Joab's devotion to his master, and all his disregard of blood. This chief, fearing, says Ellis, that Kaméhaméha might frustrate his purpose if Keona's canoe were allowed to land, waded, above his middle, into the sea, and, regardless of the King's orders and the expostulation of the chiefs, seized the canoe. with one hand and with the other stabbed Keona to the heart as he sat in the stern. Having dipped his hand in blood, he proceeded to murder seven of the chief's companions and friends who were in the same canoe. In another boat were a younger brother of Keona, and some others, whose lives were saved by Kaméhaméha's interference. Jarves says that orders had been issued

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to Keeaumoku to entice the chief on shore and assassinate him. Ellis reports, what we would more willingly believe, that Kaméhaméha and many of his chiefs regretted his death; and that the murderer justified his act on the ground that there could have been no peace or security if Keona had been allowed to live. He acted on Bentham's doctrine of the greatest happiness to the greatest number.

And now Kaméhaméha was sovereign of all Hawaii, which in area is equal to two-thirds of the whole group. The island of Maui, with the small adjacent ones of Lanai and Molokai, which he had lately subdued, taking advantage of his absence, threw off their newly-acquired yoke, and returned to allegiance to Kahikili their former king.

The visits of Vancouver, which took place in 1792, 1793, 1794, and 1794, have been already noticed. He observed with regret the depopulation which had been caused in the islands by war since his first coming there with Cook, in 1778. He was also struck with the powerful character and the abilities of Kaméhaméha. His countenance, which Captain King described, had changed with years, and its look of stern ferocity had softened into an expression of firmness mixed with dignity. Time, which makes black tresses grey, had done something; responsibility, difficulties encountered and to be encountered, and the stimulus of ambition, had effected more. His carriage was majestic, and all his motions were indicative of an uncommon mind. His eyes were dark and penetrating, seeming to read the thoughts of those about him, and the most courageous quailed before his angry glance. In figure he was Herculean; his general disposition and bearing were frank, generous, and cheerful. His sagacity was always

on the look-out for opportunities of improvement and of aggrandizement. He gained much in his intercourse with the benevolent Vancouver, who, though he could not force his actions, yet influenced him by wise counsels which were remembered long after they were given. He had a decked vessel built for the King, which was named the Britannia;' and he assisted him in forming and drilling a regular body-guard, armed with muskets and divided into day and night watches. Here was the commencement of the small standing army still maintained in the islands. Polygamy was customary among the people, and especially among the chiefs. Kaméhaméha's favourite wife was a beautiful young girl named Kaahumanu, who herself became remarkable afterwards for her character and influence. Among Vancouver's kind offices, was the reconciliation he brought about between her-she was then but eighteen-and the King, who had separated from her owing to her alleged intimacy with the chief Kaiana; and he had the pleasure of reuniting their hands on the deck of the 'Discovery,' she making the naïve request that Vancouver would beg Kaméhaméha not to beat her any longer. Vancouver used all his efforts to put an end to the civil wars; but in this he did not succeed. When, in March 1794, he took is final leave of the islands, he left behind him a name and a memory long lovingly cherished by the people he had so earnestly striven to aid; a memory unsullied by acts of wrong and violence, and a name which they will not willingly let die, and of which our own nation may be proud.

Intercourse with white men, and especially his conferences with the estimable Vancouver, afforded Kaméhaméha glimpses of a new and wonderful world beyond the limiting horizon of his own ocean. What he saw