About 1000 of the natives are usually absent from their country, engaged in the whaling trade at sea, or on the guano islands of the Pacific.

The average passage of sailing vessels, from San Francisco to Honolulu, between the 1st of October and

COMMERCIAL TREATIES.

45

1st of January, is sixteen days; the average voyage from Victoria, Vancouver's Island, is twenty-seven days; from Kanagawa, Japan, twenty-six days; and from Hong-Kong, sixty-seven days and a half.

The merchant-fleet under the Hawaiian flag, in 1860, consisted of one steamer, the Kilauea, of 414 tons burthen and 100-horse power; eleven whalers, with a total tonnage of 2303 tons; seven foreign traders, aggregate, 1426 tons; and thirty-two coasters, schooners, and sloops, together 1475 tons. The Government owns

a steam-tug, the Pele, of 30-horse power.

In 1864, the number of Hawaiian-owned merchantvessels calling at all the ports of the islands was fortyfour, tonnage 8982 tons; foreign ships 270, tonnage 141,804 tons of which thirty-six vessels were English and 200 were American. Of ships of war visiting Hawaii two were British and four were Russian.

Treaties of commerce exist between Hawaii and the following nations:-Great Britain and France, made in 1846; Denmark, in 1846; Hamburg, in 1848; United States, in 1850; Bremen, in 1851; Sweden and Norway, in 1852; new treaty with Great Britain, in 1851; new treaty with France, in 1857. In 1860, the admiral commanding the Russian fleet in the Pacific visited Honolulu, and a treaty with Russia will probably result from the communications which then took place; probably, also, with Japan, the ambassadors of which nation stayed at Honolulu for nearly a fortnight, on their way to Washington.

The Hawaiian Government is represented by consular agents in Great Britain, France, Italy, Chili, Australia, New Zealand, China, Japan, and the Russian settlements on the Amoor.

MOST

CHAPTER IV.

OUR ROYAL CITY OF HONOLULU.

OST of the views which we have seen of the city of Honolulu have this grave fault, that they have evidently been taken before the city was erected. They usually represent a good deal of mountain in the background, and in front a large expanse of water; the harbour, bearing upon it a considerable amount of shipping;-but they omit the buildings. The photographic view of Honolulu, from which the wood-cut given in this volume is taken, is comparatively modern; but even this scarcely gives the idea. of a city containing 12,000 inhabitants,-the metropolis of the North Pacific. It rather recalls those pictures we are so accustomed to in our water-colour exhibitions, where, under the catalogue name of 'View of Calais, with Fishing-Boats,' we see a brilliantly coloured chasse-marée occupying the foreground, and the town of Calais represented in a small corner by a white windmill and a couple of boarding-houses.

Few cities have a more noble situation than Honolulu. In approaching it from the south-west, the island of Oahu presents a very picturesque appearance. A chain of lofty hills, stretching from north-west to south-east, is the most prominent object inland. A remarkable

point of land closes in the bay at its lower extremity.