Fifty-one years before, he had landed from an open boat at
Laupahoehoe on the windward coast of Hawaii. The boat was the one
surviving one of the whaler Black Prince of New Bedford. Himself
New Bedford born, twenty years of age, by virtue of his driving
strength and ability he had served as second mate on the lost
whaleship. Coming to Honolulu and casting about for himself, he
had first married Kalama Mamaiopili, next acted as pilot of
Honolulu Harbour, after that started a saloon and boarding house,
and, finally, on the death of Kalama's father, engaged in cattle
ranching on the broad pasture lands she had inherited.
For over half a century he had lived with the Hawaiians, and it was
conceded that he knew their language better than did most of them.
By marrying Kalama, he had married not merely her land, but her own
chief rank, and the fealty owed by the commoners to her by virtue
of her genealogy was also accorded him. In addition, he possessed
of himself all the natural attributes of chiefship: the gigantic
stature, the fearlessness, the pride; and the high hot temper that
could brook no impudence nor insult, that could be neither bullied
nor awed by any utmost magnificence of power that walked on two
legs, and that could compel service of lesser humans, not by any
ignoble purchase by bargaining, but by an unspoken but expected
condescending of largesse.
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