Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 2.djvu/57

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Flotsom and Jetsom of the Pacific.
41

although the government sent a vessel to search for him upon information being given that white men had been said to be in the mountain districts of one of the South Sea islands. He left a young son at Otaheite, who, on coming to manhood, married Lydia Paarkii, a native princess of Hawaii, who has since enjoyed royal honors, but he died in middle life.[1]

Our young sailor, after a few months at home, joined the brig Sultana, formerly a Smyrna packet, owned by Joseph Baker & Sons, of Boston, but now bound for a voyage to the Columbia River. Her captain was James L. Lambert, and the goods she carried belonged to Nathaniel Wyeth and associates, and were destined for the Indian trade to compete with the Hudson's Bay Company.

In passing through the Straits of Magellan, having on one occasion anchored to speak with the natives, a white man was discovered among them and rescued. He had been abandoned by his captain several months previous, and looked upon his deliverance from life and death in Patagonia as a special providence.

After getting clear of the straits the run to San Juan Fernandez was pleasant. But on arriving Captain Lambert found such a condition of affairs existing as impelled him to get to sea again in haste. The convicts on the island had risen, and seizing the officers of the Chilian


  1. Some explanation is due here as to names used by nautical men seventy years ago, and those in use at a later date. Otaheite is the Fiji of ihe present, and must be so read in this article. Which of the South Pacific or Society Islands was called Bow Island, I do not know, and can only conjecture from the latitude and longitude given me by Lemont. From this information I am led to think that it was one of the group now known as Borim Island, 26 30' S. E. from Japan, distant five hundred miles.

    The following information concerning Captain Dominis was furnished me by a resident of Honolulu, and a member of the new government. Dominis was a native of Massachusetts, but of Italian descent. He married a Miss Holt of Massachusetts. The princess his son married, Lydia Paarkii, was a low chief in Kamehameha's train, whose name was Kapakaa. The ex-queen of Hawaii, or Mrs. John O. Dominis, better known as Queen Liliuokalani, came to the queenly rank through factional politics as other sovereigns have done, and has lost her rank in the same manner, but by foreign politicians.