day, so as to be able to enter with zest into the festivities of the evening, as a grand ball was to be given at the palace. Indeed, the entire grounds were given up to pleasure such as can only be fully imagined by those who have actually mingled with a happy people in the festivities of a tropical night.
Throughout the week one diversion followed another; until, with citizens and visitors almost surfeited with merrymaking, it came to an end, and Honolulu once more settled down to its every-day quiet and routine. Certainly the coronation celebration had been a great success. The people from the country and from the other islands went back to their homes with a renewed sense of the dignity and honor involved in their nationality, and an added interest in the administration of their government. Honolulu had been benefited in the meantime financially, the merchants and traders of every degree reaping a bountiful harvest from the free expenditure of money by every class, The king has, however, been blamed for expending the public revenues for such a purpose, and this festival is still cited as an instance of his “reckless extravagance.” A considerable contingent of the people of New England objected, if I have read correctly, to the building of the Bunker Hill Monument. In my own view the expenditure in either case was quite justified by the end sought. The Saviour himself was once accused of extravagance, or at least of permitting it, not, however, by a truly loyal disciple. The men who “carry the bag” are not always the best judges of royal obligations. It was necessary to confirm the new family “Stirps”—to use the
