Left In Mid-Air!

Remarkable Story of What Happened to Proposed Consort of Hawaii's Last Sovereign

By A. C. Rowland

FOR centuries, until the breaking-up of the confederation of the Polynes ian Island world, 600 years ago, the great double canoes of the period voy aged at frequent intervals between the northern islands—now called Hawaii— and those of the south, of which Ra’iatea was the centre.

The ties between the archipelagoes be came close and intimate.

Priests and warlocks and their aco lytes came from the north to study the ancient wisdom, and the arcana of their craft, at the council-house in the sacred precincts of Opoa, on Ra’iatea.

Warriors and chiefs of the royal clan voyaged from the south to settle in the northern islands and become the found ers of dynasties of high chiefs.

The chronicles of all these things were embodied in genealogies and oral tradi tions, and epic poetry chanted at great ceremonies. And so the antiscians of Hawaii and the Society Islands preserv ed the memory of each other through the centuries which followed the “sin of Avarua”, and the disposal of the confed eration, until communication was re established in recent times.

IT was not strange, then, that when, in the last years of the nineteenth century, the Queen of Hawaii sought a husband, her thoughts should have turned to the islands of the south.

Years before, a young man of Tahiti who said he was a prince of that coun try, had visited Honolulu. The Queen remembered him. Here was a chance

to re-unite the ancient royal families.

She wrote him a letter.

The man who received the letter was a very different person from the hand some young prince the Queen remem bered. Years of good living and oceans of good cheer had so expanded his equator that he had to lean far over to see the tips of his toes. In addition, that mysterious disease of the tropics— elephantiasis—had laid hold on him and destroyed the grace of his nether limbs.

Moreover, he was not really a prince.

The tolerant insouciance which allows distant relatives of islands royalty to assume the titles of prince and prin cess, if it suits their fancy, had never troubled him by a too critical examina tion of his genealogy.

These disabilities did not, however, cast a shadow to blemish the knightly eloquence, worthy of Sir Launcelot Du Lake, that graced his answering letter.

MORE letters passed, and at length the Queen —as reigning queens must do—invited him to become her royal consort.

The prince saw before him a broad highway of riches and glory. He must, however, find means to enter his future kingdom with becoming state. He went to his friend, Van Wyck.

Van Wyck was a thrifty Dutchman who, by years of work and self-denial, had accumulated a modest fortune. The prince showed him the Queen’s letters, and the lock of her hair she enclosed in her last epistle.

“I am about to become King of Ha waii” he said. “If you will finance me I will make you my Royal Chan cellor. Your honorarium will be ten thousand a year”.

Van Wyck agreed. The prince de parted for San Francisco.

In this, as in many another royal ro mance, the course of true love did not at all run smoothly.

Her Majesty’s ministers, informed of what was going on, and full of dis pleasure over the knowledge, took quick action A message was despatched to me Hawaiian Commissioner at San Francisco that the prince must be pre vented from embarking for Honolulu, at any cost, until further instructions; a messenger was sent with all speed to i. a.niti.

The messenger—a charming Hawaiian gentleman who played expertly the gui tar—sang the mele of his native islands and exhibited a flattering interest in iahitian lore and genealogies and be came a great favourite at Papeete. As souvenirs of a delightful visit he col lected photographs. Among them was a recent photograph in which was a speaking likeness of the prince stand ing in the front row of a group of merry wedding guests.

THE messenger’s report and the group photograph adorned with an inky arrow pointing to the prince, arriv ed in due time at the royal palace in Honolulu. The Queen was aghast. She summoned her rhihisters.

“We must use every means under heaven to get possession of those let ters and the lock of Your Majesty’s hair”, they advised.

“Keep him away from Honolulu, even at the cost of half of my kingdom” commanded the Queen.

Other messengers were despatched to San Francisco.

Meanwhile, at San Francisco, the prince was riding the heights, and leap ing from peak to peak like an inebri ated Valkyr. His tailors were fashioning, at his command, uniforms glittering with gold lace, and costly robes of con vention in generous abundance. His apartments \vere the royal suite of the city’s swankiest hotel. The splendour of his dinners became the talk of the town.

If doubts assailed him when the ex pected summons to Honolulu was so long delayed, he put them to flight with magnums of the sparkling vintages of France. The royal consort of Hawaii must maintain his prestige and the hon our of his future realm.

When months had passed, and the distracted Van Wyck had no more to give, the prince did not lower his ban ners until his debts far overshadowed the heights of his glory.

The crafty messengers from Hawaii had awaited this hour.

When the prince found himself the centre of a whirling vortex of storming creditors, the royal emissaries appeared.

They delivered their ultimatum; if he would surrender the letters, the lock of hair, and agree never to set foot on Hawaii for evermore, they would rescue him from legal proceedings and land him safely at Tahiti.

The prince returned to Tahiti.

Whether or no the fall of the Hawaiian monarchy, which came to pass soon afterward, offered him any consolation, he never disclosed.