On that occasion I had been presented to the Queens; but since that time Nomahanna had so much increased in size, that I did not know her again. She was aware how highly I esteemed her departed consort; my appearance brought him vividly to her remembrance, and she could not restrain her tears, in speaking of his death. "The people," said she, "have lost in him a protector and a father. What will now be the fate of these islands, the God of the Christians only knows." She now informed me with much self-gratulation that she was a Christian, and attended the prayer-meeting several times every day. Desirous to know how far she had been instructed in the religion she professed, I inquired through Marini the grounds of her conversion. She replied that she could not exactly describe them, but that the missionary Bengham, who understood reading and writing perfectly well, had assured her that the Christian faith was the best; and that, seeing how far the Europeans and Americans, who were all Christians, surpassed her compatriots in knowledge, she concluded that their belief must be the most reasonable. "If, however," she added, "it should be found unsuited to our people, we will reject it, and adopt another." Hence it appears that the christianity of the missionaries is not regarded with the reverence which, in its purity, it is calculated to inspire in the most uncultivated minds. In conclusion, Nomahanna triumphantly informed me, that the women might now eat as much pork as they pleased, instead of being, as formerly, limited to dog's flesh. At this observation, an intrusive idea suddenly changed her tone and the expression of her features. With a deep sigh, she exclaimed--"What would Tameamea say if he could behold the changes which have taken place here? No more Gods--no more Marais: all are destroyed! It was not so in his time:--we shall never have such another king!" Then, while the tears trickled down her cheeks, she bared her right arm, and showed me, tattooed on it in the O Wahi language--"Our good King Tameamea died on the 8th of May 1819." This sign of mourning for the beloved monarch, which cannot be laid aside like our pieces of crape, but accompanies the mourner to the grave, is very frequent on the Sandwich Islands, and testifies the esteem in which his memory is held: but it is a still more striking proof of the universal grief for his loss, that on the anniversary of his death, all his subjects struck out one of their front teeth; and the whole nation have in consequence acquired a sort of whistle in speaking. Chinau had even had the above words tattooed on his tongue, of which he gave me ocular demonstration; nor was he singular in this mode of testifying his attachment. It is surprising that an operation so painful, and which occasions a considerable swelling, should not be attended with worse consequences.