Twenty-five he was, in all-glorious
ripeness of man, great and princely in body as he was great and
princely in spirit. No matter how wild the fun, how reckless mad
the sport, he never seemed to forget that he was royal, and that
all his forebears had been high chiefs even to that first one they
sang in the genealogies, who had navigated his double-canoes to
Tahiti and Raiatea and back again. He was gracious, sweet, kindly
comradely, all friendliness--and severe, and stern, and harsh, if
he were crossed too grievously. It is hard to express what I mean.
He was all man, man, man, and he was all prince, with a strain of
the merry boy in him, and the iron in him that would have made him
a good and strong king of Hawaii had he come to the throne.
"I can see him yet, as I saw him that first day and touched his
hand and talked with him . . . few words and bashful, and anything
but a year-long married woman to a grey haole at grey Nahala. Half
a century ago it was, that meeting--you remember how our young men
then dressed in white shoes and trousers, white silk shirts, with
slashed around the middle the gorgeously colourful Spanish sashes--
and for half a century that picture of him has not faded in my
heart.
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