“Almost all travelers have been pleased to endow with surpassing beauty the women of the different archipelagos of the South Seas. I cannot speak of those in the Marquesas or Society Islands, but if one may judge by the Sandwich Islanders, on whom they have heaped the same praises, I am obliged to say that they are far from living up to this portrait.”
“But I must agree that they possess a natural grace that, without matching the fine and regular features of a white and delicate skin has nevertheless an almost irresistible attraction. Their movements are smooth and supple, their postures enchanting and easy, and their glances, more than anything, are indescribably alluring.”
“The freedom they enjoy means that they are strangers to anxiety or constraint, and this state of tranquility is reflected in all their bodily manners.”
“If they suffer storms of the heart these must be of a passing nature because there is no need for these to persist. Their ways appear to be based on inconstancy; they need never suffer the boredom of an ill-matched union.”
“Amused by the veriest trifles, they wear only smiles on their lips, and their mouths never open to say no. It is surprising that that the stranger, finding such an easy welcome among them, lets himself pain =t them with flattering praise if only to enlarge on and embellish his own conquests.”
“When, several days after our arrival, the young king wished to visit the Heros, we prepared a small collation, and he came on board with the regent and a numerous suite.”
“Kauikeaouli drank with pleasure our best liquors and ate our cakes with eagerness. We noticed that he did not touch the poi that he always has brought along wherever he goes; he preferred our good bread.”
“When he got into his boat to return we saluted him with thirteen guns, a courtesy that he found quite flattering. On the quay his bodyguard awaited: a score of fine young men fitted out simply but uniformly in blue pantaloons, short blue jackets, round hats, guns, bayonets, and ammunition pouches.”
“The king’s house is located in the same compound as that of the regent and is of the same style and size. It has a very high roof supported by low sidings that incline to the inside.”
“This shape imparts to these dwellings of wood and straw more strength than if the sustaining walls were perpendicular. The king has another house built according to the rules of our architecture but he never lives in it, preferring this one of thatch.”
“In fact, this sort of dwelling is better suited to their mode of life. They love to stretch out on mats, letting themselves drop wherever the fancy strikes them, and there they spend the greatest part of the day lying together helter-skelter on their rush carpets. This could not be done in lodgings furnished like ours, where they would need a sofa for each person.”
“The young king sleeps in his thatched great house only in bad weather; when the night is fine he stays in a small hut that has to be entered on hands and knees and that is barely large enough for four people sitting or stretched out.”
“Those of his young court follow his example; each constructs a small hut close to his, all of them together forming a sort of camp around the principal house, which hardly serve for more than to store the furniture.”
“The king and the regent are not the only principal authorities in the archipelago. A wife of the famous Kamehameha I, Queen Kaahumanu, exercises much power in fact if not legally.”
“She has her private court and her own coterie of followers. She lives in the city during the winter but passes the summer in a pretty valley a league to the east of Honolulu.”
“Along with the English consul I went one day to see her at her residence, which consisted of two main houses and a number
of huts.”
“We found her seated on a mat and leaning back on cushions covered in silk. Although she was not much interested in us, she received us in a dignified way. A woman of forty-two, she appeared to have once had much embonpoint, but bad health, caused by her well-known excesses, had brought on premature old age, which left her little hope of a long life.”
“Thus the adherents of the young king were being patient while awaiting the death of Kaahumanu, which they expected soon and believed would deliver him from a feminine yoke.”
French sea captain Auguste Dehaut-Cilly made round-the world travels between 1826 and 1829; all of the above is from his account of the Islands following his trip from California to Hawai‘i, in 1828.
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Alphonse_Pellion,_Sandwich Islands-Houses of Kalanimoku, Prime Minister of the King_(c._1819) 
Alphonse_Pellion,_Îles_Sandwich;_Maisons_de_Kraïmokou,_Premier_Ministre_du_Roi;_Fabrication_des_Étoffes_(c._1819,_detail)
