is sufficiently accurate.  But as regards style the problem is much more difficult.  To convey not only the meaning but exactly the Hawaiian way of seeing things, in such form as to get the spirit of the original, is hardly possible to our language.  The brevity of primitive speech must be sacrificed, thus accentuating the tedious repetition of detail—­a trait sufficiently characteristic of Hawaiian story-telling.  Then, too, common words for which we have but one form, in the original employ a variety of synonyms.  “Say” and “see” are conspicuous examples.  Other words identical in form convey to the Polynesian mind a variety of ideas according to the connection in which they are used—­a play upon words impossible to translate in a foreign idiom.  Again, certain relations that the Polynesian conceives with exactness, like those of direction and the relation of the person addressed to the group referred to, are foreign to our own idiom; others, like that of time, which we have more fully developed, the Polynesian recognizes but feebly.  In face of these difficulties the translator has reluctantly foregone any effort to heighten the charm of the strange tale by using a fictitious idiom or by condensing and invigorating its deliberation.  Haleole wrote his tale painstakingly, at times dramatically, but for the most part concerned for its historic interest.  We gather from his own statement and from the breaks in the story that his material may have been collected from different sources.  It seems to have been common to incorporate a Laieikawai episode into the popular romances, and of these episodes Haleole may have availed himself.  But we shall have something more to say of his sources later; with his particular style we are not concerned.  The only reason for presenting the romance complete in all its original dullness and unmodified to foreign taste is with the definite object of showing as nearly as possible from the native angle the genuine Polynesian imagination at work upon its own material, reconstructing in this strange tale of the “Woman of the Twilight” its own objective world, the social interests which regulate its actions and desires, and by this means to portray the actual character of the Polynesian mind.

This exact thing has not before been done for Hawaiian story and I do not recall any considerable romance in a Polynesian tongue so rendered.[4] Admirable collections of the folk tales of Hawaii have been gathered by Thrum, Remy, Daggett, Emerson, and Westervelt, to which should be added the manuscript tales collected by Fornander, translated by John Wise, and now edited by Thrum for the Bishop Museum, from which are drawn the examples accompanying this paper.  But in these collections the lengthy recitals which may last several hours in the telling or run for a couple of years as serial in some Hawaiian newspaper are of necessity cut down to a summary narrative, sufficiently suggesting the flavor of the original, but not picturing fully the way in which the image is formed in the mind of the native story-teller.  Foreigners and Hawaiians have expended much ingenuity in rendering the mele or chant with exactness,[5] but the much simpler if less important matter of putting into literal English a Hawaiian kaao has never been attempted.