Hualalai, to visit the celebrated temple of Ahuaumi. This place once devoted to our ancient worship is a wonderful pile of rock, built by one of the kings of past centuries, and its construction was comparatively a short work, and yet cach single stone must have been raised by a multitude of strong hands and muscular arms, passed from one sct of laborers to another until it found its location in the structure; and the whole building thus completed was consecrated by Umi to the gods, and used for purposes then deemed most sacred. Visitors usually make this one of the celebrities to be seen if they are near enough to its location; but I regret to say there must have been those in the vicinity who had no respect for sacred antiquities, for a number of these stones, so laboriously erected, have been torn down, and from them a goat-pen has been built.
It was not long, however, that any of our party could indulge in recreation, for the rapid failure of the health of the king rendered it necessary for some one of us to be always watching with him. When it came to be the turn of Queen Emma, she urged him in plain language to nominate her to assume the reins of government at his decease; but his determination appeared to be unchanged to leave the selection to the people. Even when I was by his bedside, doing my duty as one of those chosen by birth to stand near during his dying hours, Queen Emma did not cease from her persistency, but again broached the subject of succession, and spoke to the king of the great importance to his people of naming an heir to the throne. The indelicacy of this persuasion from a Hawaiian point of view
