something--a man would walk gravely along with a pig under his arm; after
him followed perhaps a little child with half a dozen bananas, a woman
with a chicken tied by a string, a girl with a handkerchief full of eggs,
a boy with a cocoa-nut, an old woman with a calabash of poi, and so on.
In the palace yard all this was laid in a heap before the young king, who
thereupon said thank you, and, with a few kind words, dismissed the people
to their homes.

As an illustration of the power of the old chiefs, as well as of the
density of the population in former times, it is related that when the
wall inclosing a certain fish pond on the windward side of Oahu was to be
built, the chief then ruling over that land gave notice that on a certain
day every man, woman, and child within his domain must appear at a
designated point, bearing a stone. The wall, which stands yet, is half a
mile long, well built, and probably six feet high; and it was begun and
completed in that one day.

[Illustration: LUNALILO.]

I was shown, on Kauai, a young man of insignificant appearance, and of no
particular merit or force of character. To him an old woman recently dying
had by a will, written out for her by a friend of my own, left all her
property--a taro patch, a house, and some other land. My friend asked
why. He is my chief, was the reply; and sure enough, on inquiry my friend
discovered, what he had not before known, that the man was a descendant
of one of the chief families, of whom this old woman had in her early days
been a subject.

As the chief was the ruler, the people looked to him for food in a time of
scarcity. He directed their labors; he protected them against wrong from