Around the World with a King

by William N. Armstrong

  Queen Victoria and the Princess Beatrice (1881) " " 224

  Prince Henry of Prussia (1881) " " 226

  The Princess of Wales (1381) " " 228

  The King of Belgium (1881) " " 248

  The Queen of Belgium (1881) " " 250

  Prince William of Prussia and Princess Augusta Victoria of Schleswig Holstein (1881) " " 252

  Franz Joseph I, Emperor of Austria (1881) " " 254

  Elisabeth, Empress of Austria (1881) " " 256

  President Grévy of France (1881) " " 258

  The Queen of Spain (1881) " " 264

  Dom Fernando, Regent of Portugal (1881) " " 266

  The King of Portugal (1881) " " 268

  The Queen of Portugal (1881) " " 272

  William N. Armstrong, after a Dinner given by King Kalakaua " " 280

  King Kalakaua and his Military Staff, (On the Steps of his Falace, 1882) " " 284

  INTRODUCTION TO THE

  NEW EDITION

  including a commentary on

  King Kalab.ua and his times

  DAVID Kalakaua, the last king of the Hawaiian Islands, reigned from 1874 to 1891. This account of his royal journey around the world, of which he is the central character, reads like a tale from the Arabian Nights. His trip, undertaken in 1881, conferred on Kalakaua a singular distinction. He had become the first monarch to circumnavigate the earth!

  It is altogether fitting that he should have been the recipient of this honor. In his veins ran the love of the ocean, the thirst for adventure inherited from viking Polynesian chiefs. Before the air age, the Hawaiian Islands existed in awesome isolation. They could be reached only by a long and difficult voyage. They were one of the last frontiers-among the remote islands settled by man. In fact, the Hawaiian Islands were unknown to the world until they were discovered by Captain James Cook as he headed north from the Society Islands searching for the Northwest Passage.

  James Cook had named the Hawaiian chain of islands the Sandwich Islands after the fourth earl of Sandwich, then secretary of the British Admiralty and-incidentally-the inventor of the common sandwich. Kalakaua was frequently addressed as "King of the Sandwich Islands." The king's high style of life won him another title, the Merry Monarch. He loved to sing, drink, and dance. Festivity characterized his court-at least superficially. His reign was a period of unprecedented wealth for Hawaii because of sugar profits. King Kalakaua was dedicated to making the most of his opportunities. His nature was expansive, and he loved to be with the scholars, artists, and poets who flocked to his court. He befriended Robert Louis Stevenson, who found in the king a man of charm, intellect, and scholarly interests. Kalakaua had an impressive fund of knowledge which he put to use in his published collection of historical tales entitled The Legends and Myths of Hawaii: The Fables and Folklore of a Strange People (reprinted in 1972).

  In reading Around the World with a King, one should be forewarned of the contrast between its author, William N. Armstrong, and Kalakaua. Bias shown by Mr. Armstrong, exasperating to those who understand Polynesian tradition, can be attributed to his Calvinistic background. He was the son of New England missionaries who came to teach the gospel of Christianity from that strict interpretation. They believed in the descent of mankind from Adam and Eve, and that the couple had been cast out of Paradise by the great Jehovah for their disobedience.

  Kalakaua, on the other hand, was extremely liberal. While he revered the Hawaiian ancestral spirits and gods as beings of power and was a nominal Christian, he was also receptive to Buddhism. He even suggested that Buddhist teachers be sent to Hawaii. (Buddhism was to become a major religion in the Hawaiian Islands; even now, it is second only to Christianity.)

  Kalakaua's life was full of trouble. Although he had been elected by an overwhelming legislative vote on 12 February 1874, his election touched off a riot by those who supported his rival to the throne-Queen Emma, the widow of King Kamehameha IV. Even years after his election, his opposition was so powerful that his world journey had to be financed virtually at his own expense, and he was to travel incognito under the title Prince. His enemies rejected his first choice of travelling companions-the Honorable John Kapena (Hawaiian) and George W. Macfarland (British). Two others were substituted: Court Chamberlain Charles H. Judd, a friend; and William Armstrong, a cabinet minister who was given the title of Commissioner of Immigration, since the prime purpose of the tour was to be a search for immigrant labor for Hawaii's sugar plantations.

  The fourth person in the entourage was the king's valet Robert (Ropert), who had arrived in Honolulu as a ship's cook. He had been taken into the royal household as a chef, but his cooking was a horror. Somehow, he was elevated to the position of King's Valet, probably because he amused King Kalakaua. Robert was given to pranks and to drunkenness-to the great disgust of Armstrong. Kings have always fancied jesters and Robert is the clown of this story, often proving a source of embarrassment to the party. However, he was of great value in other ways. No ordinary man he, Robert had been born the German Baron von Oehlhoffen. His excellent education, fluency in languages, and knowledge of European court etiquette were just what the travelling party needed.

  Before leaving Hawaii, the King had toured the islands to explain to his people the purposes of his journey. Ceremonies calling on the ancient gods for help were held on Maui, Kaua'i, and Molaka'i. At an ancient temple on the Big Island, an offering was made to Pele, the fire goddess. The second Hawaiian king, Kamehameha II, had journeyed to England to meet King George IV, but he and his consort, Queen Kamamalu, both had died in London of the measles in 1824. The Hawaiian people were naturally concerned about their sovereign, and, although most were converted Christians, some still felt their ancient gods could protect their king.

  On 20 January 1881, the royal party left Honolulu for San Francisco on the steamship City of Sydney. From the very first stop, it was a triumphal journey. As a high officer of the Masonic Scottish Rite and Knight Templar of York, the king was welcomed on his trip by fellow Masons. Kalakaua's incognito status was swept aside.

  A San Francisco newspaper reported that His Majesty wore ordinary garb at functions although his aides were attired in "elaborate military uniforms with much gilt braid and deep red sashes." Colonel Judd, as an officer of the king's staff, was entitled to such a uniform, but not, it seems, Mr. Armstrong. Yet the latter insisted he must have one, and it was provided for him at a cost of $700. Mr. Armstrong was an ambitious man, witty but sarcastic, prejudiced and anti-Hawaiian, ever ready to criticize his king. His book, Around the World with a King, was published in 1904, the year before his death. Kathleen Dickinson Mellen, who wrote Hawaiian history from the native viewpoint, said of Armstrong, "he ridiculed King Kalakaua and portrayed himself as the hero of the tour."

  Mr. Armstrong's low opinion of Kalakaua was similar to that of some other American residents of Hawaii who were blind to the good points of the king. Kalakaua was a fascinating character. He was a man of culture but he had the endearing if lamentable Polynesian weakness of responding naturally to his impulses. He was known even to have dropped off to sleep in distinguished company. He had all the charm of a well-bred Polynesian aristocrat and the Polynesian sense of humor.

  At the beginning of his book, Armstrong relates that he wrote a day-to-day memoir of the tour. (This journal is in the Yale University Library.) He says that the book is "the painting of a portrait with wrinkles" and that the book's publication had been "delayed for some years, and until after his [the king's] death in order to permit a freedom of narration and adherence to truth." It is certainly a landmark in the literature of Hawaii as well as an interesting historical document.

  Armstrong, because he was reared to believe in the American democratic system, was inimical to monarchical government. He mentions Kalakaua's fear that the United States might take over his kingdom (as, of course, did happen, when Queen Liliuokalani was deposed in 1893, and the islands of Hawaii were offered by the insurrectionists to America). But Hawaii was alre
ady moving into the American orbit, for reasons that had little to do with Armstrong's beliefs or Kalakaua's fears. Looking backward from the 1970's, the annexation in 1898 and the final step of statehood in 1959 seem inevitable. Hawaii's destiny was sealed by American financial interests in the sugar industry-and by the need of the United States for a base in the Pacific following the Spanish-American War.

  It was the sugar industry which had swept Hawaii to a new prosperity. The sugar planters and merchants were the principal taxpayers. They were highly critical of Kalakaua's grand style of living, especially when he built lolani Palace at great cost. The national debt of Hawaii rose from $388,900 in 1880 to $2,600,000 in 1890.

  The sugar industry proved a lasting source of solid cash, although minor industries cropped up from time to time to put money into the hands of Hawaiians to whom, in former times, money was unknown. The first Hawaiian commerce had begun in 1778 when Cook's ships bartered nails and knickknacks for hogs and vegetables. Sandalwood exports to China provided prosperity to Hawaiian chiefs until the forests were depleted. Catering to whaling ships brought a transient prosperity. In the 1850's, as many as 400 vessels a year visited Hawaii. The latter industry failed after petroleum was discovered and after the whaling fleets were disrupted by the American Civil War. But the demand for Hawaiian sugar continued unabated, especially during and after the American Civil War, which interfered with the sugar supply from the Southern states.

  King Kalakaua, the first monarch to set foot on American soil, had personally visited Washington in 1874 to sponsor a reciprocity treaty of duty-free commerce between Hawaii and the United States. This treaty was ratified by Congress. The renewal of the Reciprocity Treaty in 1887 was accompanied by the condition that the United States be granted exclusive rights to the use of Pearl Harbor as a naval coaling and repair station. As Hawaii's only deep-water harbor-in fact, the only true ship harbor in the central North Pacific-it had enormous strategic value. Against much opposition and with the disapproval of his sister Liliuokalani, Kalakaua signed this treaty. No single act by the king did more to ensure an American destiny for Hawaii.

  As we know, the primary aim of King Kalakaua's journey around the world was to find immigrants to help repopulate Hawaii and to meet the needs of the sugar industry. The need for labor on the sugar plantations was the basic cause of change in the racial balance of Hawaii. But Kalakaua promised his people that he was going to look for citizens, not slaves-"so that we may become strong, secure, a nation of proud independent people-not a nation of a few millionaires and many slaves."

  Curiously, the rise of the sugar industry had coincided with the decline of the native Hawaiian population. Foreign diseases, to which the Hawaiians had little immunity-smallpox, tuberculosis, cholera, venereal afflictions, and leprosy-had exacted an appalling toll. The population of full-blooded Hawaiians, an estimated 300,000 in 1778, had declined to less than 45,000 in the 1870's. The planters had reached to foreign parts for labor. The majority came from Japan, China, and the Philippines, but some were brought in from Portugal and elsewhere in Europe. In Kalakaua's own time, the newcomers outnumbered the native Hawaiians.

  While King Kalakaua had a perfectly legitimate excuse to embark on a world journey, namely to find citizens to replenish his kingdom, he also had another, more personal motive. His heart was set on studying the courts of foreign lands. He wanted to advance his knowledge of court etiquette and to gather contacts, ideas, and furnishings to enrich his palace. He had laid the foundation stone of Iolani Palace in December 1879 and was planning his own coronation and that of Queen Consort Kapiolani, which took place in 1883.

  It is probable that he was relieved to escape, for a time, the political squabbles of Honolulu. His enemies spread the malicious rumor that he was off to find the highest bidder for the Hawaiian kingdom. A smallpox epidemic had broken out and Armstrong suggested that the King was fleeing the plague. This was most unjust, as Kalakaua had previously gone into the midst of lepers when he visited Father Damien.

  From San Francisco, the royal party went to Japan to be hospitably received by Emperor Mutsuhito and his colorful court. Kalakaua, without informing his companions, had arranged a private meeting with Emperor Mutsuhito. He took this opportunity to make two proposals, which, had they been adopted, would surely have changed the course of history. One plan envisioned a grand Asian cooperative league with Japan and Hawaii leading the nations. The other suggestion was that the Japanese and Hawaiian royal families be linked in marriage. He offered his own niece, Princess Kaiulani, then five years old and heir to the throne, in a marriage alliance with a noble Japanese prince. Nothing came of either proposal but Mr. Armstrong was deeply shocked at the ideas. Acceptance would have linked Japan and Hawaii by royal ties and political alliance.

  After Japan, the group moved to China, Hong Kong, Siam (Thailand), Singapore, and Egypt. They entered Europe via Italy and crossed France to England. Britain had long been Hawaii's favorite foreign nation and Hawaiian royalty had looked up to Britain, then the most powerful country in the world, as a model of government and court life. The British, in turn, highly respected the Hawaiian royal house. The Queen Consort Kapiolani, with her sister Liliuokalani, was later to attend the Golden Jubilee of Queen Victoria in 1887. (In fact, Kamehameha I had ceded Hawaii to Britain but the offer was declined.) The bond between the two kingdoms remained strong.

  Thus King Kalakaua met the warmest of welcomes at the court of Queen Victoria. The queen received him personally and was delighted with his noble bearing, intelligence, and excellent English. In fact, everywhere Kalakaua went, his fellow monarchs had recognized him as one of their own kind and treated him accordingly.

  After England, visits were made to Belgium, Germany, Austria, France, and Portugal. After ten months of travel, the royal party returned to Honolulu on 29 October 1881. The Hawaiian subjects of the kingdom and many Caucasian residents welcomed the king back with song, dance, and feasting. His enemies sulked and did not acknowledge his return.

  And so ended his fabulous journey around the world. He had gone to the realms of Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, and Napoleon. Regardless of the insignificant physical size of the Hawaiian kingdom, or of his unbefitting suite of three persons, King Kalakaua had been received as an equal by kings, queens, and potentates.

  Once back to the petty wranglings of provincial Honolulu, and to the harassment of his critics, the king's health steadily declined. Some said this decline was due to his excessive drinking while others attributed his failing health to the hounding of his enemies. In 1890, the king went to California, hoping to recover his health. All in vain. He died in the Palace Hotel of San Francisco on 20 January 1891. His body was returned to Honolulu and he lay in state in the throne room of Iolani Palace. Interment was in the crypt of the Royal Mausoleum in the verdant Nu' uanu Valley. There he rests with many other kings and queens of Hawaii. Each year on November 16, Kalakaua's birthday, admirers gather at the Royal Mausoleum to honor him with eulogy and song.

  The grandest building of Honolulu, Iolani Palace, built by Kalakaua and occupied by him and Queen Kapiolani after its completion in 1882, stands today as a historical museum and the only royal palace in the United States, a fitting monument to the romantic age of a remarkable king.

  What was the reality of Kalakaua's world? We can still see the trappings of that doomed monarch: the crowns, the sceptres, the thrones, the uniforms and regalia that belonged to that glorious past. King David Kalakaua, in his zest for living, used these things as toys. But his real love was for the Hawaiian people, for whom he always did his best.

  What more is there to say about the demise of the Hawaiian monarchy which King David Kalakaua worked so hard to establish more firmly? Its passing robbed the Hawaiian people of a focal point of identity; yet of late, in the 1970's, Hawaiian culture has been experiencing a renaissance. Kalakaua would be pleased!

  Terence Barrow, Ph.D.

  I shall therefore let the reader know that it is no
t the rarity of going round the world that has occasioned this publication, but if some incidents have happened in such a voyage, as either have not happened to others, or as no other people, though performing the same voyage, have taken notice of, then this account may be worth publishing, though the thing, viz., the voyage round the world, be in itself of no value.

  -DANIEL DEFOE, "A New Voyage Round the World by a Course Never Sailed Before."

  AROUND THE WORLD WITH A KING

  CHAPTER I

  King Kalakaua Plans a Tour — The First Sovereign to Put a Girdle Around the World — Selects His Companions — His Valet — Proposes to Travel Incognito — Scope of His Tour — Delay in Publication of This Memoir — The King Addresses His Subjects — Ceremonies Attending the Departure — The King's Character — His Minister and Chamberlain — Kalakaua's Knowledge of Royal Etiquette — His Unfortunate Predecessors — Theoretical and Practical Astronomy.

  KALAKAUA I, King of the Hawaiian Islands, said to me, his Attorney-General, early one morning in January, 1881, while we sat under the cocoanut palms which towered above his little Summer Palace at Waikiki, near Honolulu, and the surf of the Pacific Ocean, foaming over the coral reef, broke nearly at our feet,—"Now that my troubles are over, I mean to take a trip around the world, and you must go with me."

  He had been upon the throne for six years, and, with the true instincts of sovereigns, had availed himself of several opportunities to engage in difficulties with some of his white subjects, who held the brains and most of the property of the kingdom. They had lately threatened insurrection because he had committed several serious political errors, but he had yielded to their demands, and on the night preceding this declaration of intention to travel he and a hundred of his white subjects had met in a grand banquet; they had together emptied the loving cup; and the white doves of peace again swept through the tropic air.