aItneral of the king and quee., 351

cf the Blende, were placed on the platform. Imme-diately after, the rest of the company entered, andfarmed numerous groups around the apartment, while,accompanied by the band drawn up on one side, wesung the native funeral anthem to the tune of Pleyel ’sHymn , and Mr. Bingham made a short prayer in thesame language. This scene was by far the most strik-ing incident of the day. The sable drapery of theroom, the full mourning suits of the majority, inter-spersed and relieved by the rich and glittering uniformsof the officers, the handsome half-mourning dresses andwhite plumes of Mrs. Charlton and sister, Madam Boki,and one of the young queens-dowager, who has latelybecome a bride, with a variety of other becoming andappropriate dresses, the melancholy tones of the instru-ments, and the solemn truths of the chant in thechamber of the dead, combined to make it a truly inte-resting and affecting moment.

Thus, under the mournful reverberations of the minute-guns, have been received, and peacefully deposited ontheir native shores, the king and queen of the Sand-wich Islands, whose short reign has been marked byepochs no less momentous than the abolition of a cruelsystem of idolatry ; the introduction of the elements ofliterature, and the arts and usages of civilized life; and,above all, the promulgation of the Gospel, with all thebright hopes and eternal retributions of Christianity !To these dark monarchs of this western archipelago, inthe gloomy mansion of their repose, I gave one moretear; one more tear, in remembrance of the better cha-racteristics, which, not unfrequently, shone through