Around the World with a King

by William N. Armstrong

  After visiting many places, the next day, including Madame Tussaud's Museum, the Tower, and the National Gallery, the King in the evening attended a dinner at the residence of Mr. Hoffnung, a commercial agent of his government. It was unlike all other banquets for the surprise it gave him in meeting a number of the most beautiful Jewish women in London. At no place in any country did he see so many handsome women gathered in one place as there were here; for their dark beauty was enhanced by the rich colouring which is developed by the English climate.

  On the following evening we dined with the Baroness Burdett-Coutts, in Holly Lodge. The house was reached through a covered way of rocks fantastically arranged with shells, rare plants, and coloured lights; so that it was like a grotto of the tropics; the lawns and old trees were illuminated. The Baroness, with a singularly benevolent face and quiet manners, had a talent for drawing out her guests in conversation; she seemed to carry at her girdle a bunch of many keys of different moulds, from which she readily selected one which fitted and opened the lock of the brain of each guest. She opened the mind of the Polynesian King, and he talked with freedom and ease about the traditions of his people. A peeress who was one of the guests asked the King if Tahiti was not the capital of his kingdom, although it is two thousand miles distant from it and is a French possession. Upon this George Augustus Sala, who was a guest, remarked that although the English people traded with the world, their geographical knowledge was most limited, as it was considered a minor matter in the schools.

  The King and the Baroness, after dinner, played a game of billiards, the tally of which was kept by the Baroness's young husband.

  On returning to Claridge's the King found a letter from the Prime Minister in which he stated that the Queen had conferred on him the Grand Cross of the Order of St. Michael and St. George. He was delighted with this gift, and in turn conferred on the Queen and the Prince of Wales the Order of Kamehameha. While the King was decorated with many Orders, there was none which he sought so earnestly as those of the British Queen. It was not an Order held in the highest esteem among Englishmen, but was used often in doing honour to foreigners of rank.

  "Punch" did not ignore the King; among its shots at the flying follies it emptied a barrel at this royal bird of passage. Whatever the merit of this verse may be, it belongs beyond dispute to the Victorian age:-

  "He's really a most intelligent wight,

  Who's looked on many a wonderful sight,

  And travelled by day, and eke by night,

  O'er rivers and seas and dry lands;

  But wrongly, it seems, his name we say,

  And print it too, in a horrible way,

  He ought to be called King Kalakua,

  This King of the Sandwich Islands."

  "Punch's" review of the debates in the House of Commons referred to the King, who had visited it with Sir Charles Dilke.

  "Sick of civilisation, he sighed for some of those scenes of savage manners among which he had been bred. 'My island home is far off, I will go to the House of Commons.' Sir Charles Dilke pointed out the eminent men. 'Yes, yes,' said the King, 'but where is Toby?' Dilke didn't like this urgency. It looked suspicious. But Dilke said the King never cared for dog in that way, and besides he had dined."

  When the King read this allusion to his inquiry for "Punch's" dog, Toby, he declared the Englishmen had often eaten dog in his kingdom and enjoyed it, in the belief that it was young roast pig.

  We attended the last of the dances in high life, for the season, at Marlborough House. It is unwritten law that on this occasion the Prince is relieved from social and political obligations and invites only his personal friends. It was necessary for us to appear in knee-breeches. The unusually large calves of the King's and the Chamberlain's legs, though in just proportion to their size, became the distress of the tailor, for stockings of ample size could not be obtained; those that there were fitted so tightly we feared that through some weakness in their texture they would burst open at an inopportune moment. His Royal Highness wore no decorations but that presented to him by the King. The pretty women of his coterie were, as usual, there, and diamonds were as common as pebbles. Many of these beauties looked tired, as if palled with the sameness of splendour; as if they had been diving all the season, as Balzac said, to the bottom for pleasure, and had brought up gravel. Many noted men of the younger class moved about as if they also had found pleasure the sternest moralist. Still they chatted and grinned like the inmates of the hall of Eblis, where it was mutually agreed that though each of them bore grievous diseases it should be denied by all that there was any suffering. A quiet decorum prevailed; hilarity was forbidden by the unwritten law. There was music by the stringed pieces and some languid dancing. The Princess of Wales moved about with her quiet, sweet smile which is the joy of England; she was a mistress of the art of warm personal recognition. The gardens were lighted with Chinese lanterns, and the supper table offered salads, cold meats, ices, and wine. At two o'clock the King became sleepy, and the Prince of Wales led him to the royal carriage.

  We took luncheon the next day with the Duke and Duchess of Teck in Kensington Palace. As they were under no obligation to entertain the King, the invitation was some proof of the estimation in which the Royal Family held his manners and conduct. The luncheon was entirely informal, and was served in the room in which the Queen was born; in the adjoining room she held her first Council of State on ascending the throne. The children of the family were present, one of whom became the Duchess of York. The Princess Mary was in fine humour and related many anecdotes about the Palace and the Queen.

  Royal banquets are seas, and conversations the winds that pleasantly ruffle them. We often found them dead seas, or subject to doldrums,—seas on which the guests floated like painted ships-blazing oceans of silence-without a ripple from the "eat's paw" of a story. But the Princess made it sparkle with her stories of incidents connected with this palace.

  The children, who were allowed to be present at the luncheon, were interested in the dusky monarch. There was no expectation at that time that the young girl who sat silently watching him would be the future Queen of England. We were told, afterward, that the Princess wished her children to see a Polynesian king with attractive manners.

  We had now extended our visit to sixteen days, and still the King, as a veritable "lion," was overwhelmed with invitations to luncheons, balls, and receptions. Several which he did attend in great houses I do not mention, because they were repetitions of those I have described. There was now some danger, in my opinion, that the King might outlast his welcome; it was wise to leave before the "lion" became a sucking dove or the Royal Family began to yawn. But we had been thrice fortunate in that we had been in actual, living touch for so many days with the family which crowns that vast political fabric which has been erected in these islands, lying off the coast of Europe, after centuries of revolutions, wars, abdications, dethronement, beheadings,—the fabric which rules one fourth of the people of the globe.

  By the King's command I now sent to Earl Granville a letter in which the thanks of the King were conveyed to the Royal Family for their gracious hospitality. We were informed at the last moment that even our expenses in London had been paid by the direction of the Queen.

  Although it was now late in the season, we determined to make brief visits to Belgium, Germany, Austria, France, Spain, and Portugal.

  We accordingly took the train for Dover en route to Ostend and Brussels. We also adhered to our plan of not giving to the monarchs of these countries any formal notice of our intention to visit them.

  While still in England, and on the way to Dover, I again tried to enforce a moral on the King's mind from the incidents and experiences which were fresh. The kings of Hawaii did not understand the nature of ministerial government as contrasted with kingly or personal government. In their simple minds, if there was a king, he should rule. The fiction of a kingly figurehead as it existed in Great Britain, which was essentially the rule o
f the Commons, or people, was an intricate arrangement which was beyond their understanding. The white subjects of King Kalakaua, though able to destroy the monarchy because they possessed the brains and wealth of his kingdom, cordially assented, though the majority of them were Americans, to its rule, but insisted that it should be ministerial rule. By refusing to submit to this form of government the King had already put his throne in great jeopardy, and if the offence were repeated he would again be in peril.

  I explained to him the eccentric growth of Parliamentary rule, but I was invariably met with this simple inquiry: "What is the use of having a queen if she cannot rule?" My explanations of the evolution of the British Constitution confused him. The gradual modification of traditions and political habits arising out of many circumstances he could not comprehend. I cautioned him against trifling with the Anglo-Saxons, who were his most powerful subjects. Within five years from that time he was forced to establish ministerial rule by a bloodless revolution, and within twelve years his monarchy was extinguished, as the sequel will show. I said to him on this occasion, while describing the growth of the English government, "the British nation has a prehensile tail," as an essayist, Emerson, says: "it clings to traditions and old forms, but it improves their substance." "Then," said the King, "it is a monkey government, is it? I don't want anything of that kind in my country." The tube through which we had hoped he would suck wisdom of the world was defective; all that rose in it filtered upward through Polynesian ideas.

  CHAPTER XXVI

  Belgium — Consular Offices — The Battlefield of Waterloo — Civilised and Pagan Warfare — Visits from and to King Leopold — Berlin — Visit to Prince William and Other Princes in Pottsdam — Dines with Prince William — Military Reviews — The Skeleton Dances — The Royal Hawaiian Band — Dinner with the Red Prince — Krupp's Gun Factory.

  AT the railway station in Brussels, early in the morning, the Count de Cannart d'Hamale, in a brilliant uniform, received us. He was the Hawaiian Consul-General for Belgium, and with him, in a uniform less imposing, but with a large portfolio under his arm, was the Chancellor of the Consulate.

  Consular offices are eagerly sought in Europe by European residents, although they are not salaried, are without income, and even cost the occupant some outlay. These offices give a certain social standing to the holder, and entitle him to public recognition in local entertainments and to the privilege of wearing a uniform, which may be as expensive as the vanity of the owner chooses. Often the Consul receives some decoration from the little government he represents, which enables him to claim some social distinction among his friends. Among the annoyances which now confronted us during the tour through Europe were the applicants for consulships in places where there was no foreign trade with Hawaii, and the earnest requests for decorations or Orders.

  The King of Belgium (1881).

  We took lodgings in the Hotel Belle-Vue. King Leopold of Belgium was not in the city; but one of his aides promptly called and told us he would be at home the next day and would call.

  King Kalakaua had looked forward with great pleasure to a visit to the battlefield of Waterloo. So at once, guided by an aide of the Belgian King, we drove to it, but unfortunately in a deluge of rain (an item recorded in the royal jest-book as a waterloo). From the top of the great earth mound which the British have built on the field in commemoration of their victory, under umbrellas, and before a driving rain, the King looked down upon the grain fields and the greenest of grass, and upon the objective point in that stubborn fight, the details of which were clearly fixed in his memory.

  "Your Majesty sees," I said, as the moralising Minister of State, "that the Christian nations settled their differences in the same way that your savage ancestors did, with the advantage on the side of your ancestors that they made their wars economical by eating the bodies of their enemies instead of letting them rot and waste as they are wasted in Europe. Besides, in killing and eating their prisoners, your warlike ancestors avoid a vast amount of suffering which arises from wounds, disease, and broken limbs." This, I said, was a view which a certain English moralist named Carlyle had taken on the subject, and it was an eminently practical one, for beyond pepper and salt for seasoning a victorious army need carry no rations.

  The King asked me why the great nations engaged in war, and why they did not resort to arbitration. I replied that the explanation of this strange condition of affairs could not be easily explained while we were standing on the top of the mound in a rainstorm, but I would repeat to him a remark made by John Bright in Parliament, that "all the wars England had been engaged in could have been avoided if wisdom and prudence and patience had governed."

  My royal master, like a good military critic, did not approve of some of Napoleon's strategy; but the details of this criticism I will not repeat here, as it is only a fragment of the discussion on the merits of that great warrior which will be carried on for the next thousand years.

  The next day the King of Belgium returned to Brussels and promptly called on his Hawaiian Majesty. Though his palace was next door to the hotel, he appeared in his state carriage, with footmen, out-riders, and an escort of cavalry. He asked King Kalakaua many questions about his own country and about the Oriental courts he had visited. After an interview of twenty minutes he left. Within half an hour his state carriage, with its escort of cavalry, came to the hotel, and we entered it, drove into the court-yard of the palace, which was, as I have said, next door, and returned the visit. It was singular that our little and distant kingdom had so many relations with foreign lands. We told the Belgian King that it was only by what is called an "accident" that the group of Hawaiian Islands was not a dependency of Belgium at this time. In 1840 some enterprising Americans obtained from one of the King's predecessors a lease of nearly all the public lands of the group, and had entered into contracts in Brussels for the emigration of large numbers of Belgian peasants who should become settlers upon these lands; but before the contracts were concluded the British seized the islands and defeated the project. His Hawaiian Majesty said to King Leopold, "If this plan had been executed, I, instead of being the king of the islands, would be one of your subjects visiting his sovereign." This incident the Belgian King had never heard of.

  The Queen of Belgium (1881).

  As we could not remain longer in Brussels our King declined the offer of hospitalities, and the next morning we left for Berlin.

  In Berlin we were met by aides and officers of the German court and taken to the Hotel de Roma. The Emperor William was at Ems. The next day we went by train to Potsdam, where a state carriage met us, and we were taken to the summer residence of Prince William (now the Emperor). Both the Prince and Princess received the King cordially. They spoke of Prince Henry's visit to Hawaii, and invited us to dine with them at noon the following day. We then called upon the old Prince Charles, and his son Prince Frederick Charles, known as the Red Prince, who also invited us to dine with him. We were driven to the Emperor's summer palace in the forest, with the lake before it, and the stillness of the place unbroken save by the sound of the artificial cascades.

  At dinner the next day Prince William appeared in a simple military uniform; both he and the Princess admired the King's use of the English language; one could see in the manner and discourse of the Prince that he was somewhat nervous and impetuous. After dinner, which was simple in comparison with the heavy feasts of the English, we were led about the grounds and smoked on the lawn. The Prince regretted the absence of the Emperor, which was due to the hot weather, as well a,s the absence of his father, the Crown Prince, who had requested him from London to make his Majesty's visit pleasant. He asked if there were any objects that he especially wished to see. Now the King, with all his military studies, was anxious to see military manœuvres, but did not like to say so; he said, however, that he regretted that he was not in Berlin at the time when the parade took place, for he had heard and read much about the German army. The Prince replied that during the h
ot weather the grand exercises did not take place; but if his Majesty would be pleased to see some of the troops, they would be paraded next day.

  The next morning one of the aides called with carriages, and drove us to an open field about four miles from the city. We had hardly drawn up on one side of it when we noticed dust in the distance, and within a few moments eight batteries, each of them having six field guns, dashed over the stumps and broken ground with the horses at the very top of their speed. Halting instantly at a certain point, the horses were detached, the guns unlimbered, and in a moment forty-eight guns filled the air with thunder and smoke in their discharges at targets a mile and a half distant. The terrible rapidity with which this was done seemed the very essence of masterly fighting. The artillery then passed in review before the King, and we were taken some distance to the field of cavalry practice. Seven thousand mounted men passed the King in review, and then practised evolutions over the field. Finally, forming a line nearly a mile long on one side of the field, our carriage being in the centre of it, a charge was made. The double line came down toward the carriage like a whirlwind; it was almost upon us, the speed of the horses was not slackened, and in spite of our absolute safety, as the charge seemed to be upon us we rose in the carriage as if we would jump out. The charge, which seemed to be utterly mad and headlong, stopped with the noses of the horses at the wheels of the carriage. The King recovered his martial spirits, the Emperor's aides smiled, and, I have no doubt, made a capital story of the incident. We had luncheon in the officers' barracks while the military band played the Hawaiian anthem. Its leader sent word to the King that Berger, the leader of the Hawaiian band, was a graduate from this Berlin band. Thereupon the King asked that he should be presented to him, and after it was done the bandmaster declared that the King's band had now a European reputation; this opinion was confirmed during this tour. When we retired there suddenly rose from the band the plaintive music of some of our native melodies; the fine-looking German officers rose; the King was toasted, and he left as "Hawaii Ponoi "was repeated with "The Watch on the Rhine."