I spent one evening, as had been my custom, at the oven with the Sandwich-Islanders; but it was far from being the usual noisy, laughing time.  It has been said that the greatest curse to each of the South Sea Islands was the first man who discovered it; and every one who knows anything of the history of our commerce in those parts knows how much truth there is in this; and that the white men, with their vices, have brought in diseases before unknown to the islanders, which are now sweeping off the native population of the Sandwich Islands at the rate of one fortieth of the entire population annually.  They seem to be a doomed people.  The curse of a people calling themselves Christians seems to follow them everywhere; and even here, in this obscure place, lay two young islanders, whom I had left strong, active young men, in the vigor of health, wasting away under a disease which they would never have known but for their intercourse with people from Christian America and Europe.  One of them was not so ill, and was moving about, smoking his pipe, and talking, and trying to keep up his spirits; but the other, who was my friend and aikane, Hope, was the most dreadful object I had ever seen in my life,—­ his eyes sunken and dead, his cheeks fallen in against his teeth, his hands looking like claws; a dreadful cough, which seemed to rack his whole shattered system, a hollow, whispering voice, and an entire inability to move himself.  There he lay, upon a mat, on the ground, which was the only floor of the oven, with no medicine, no comforts, and no one to care for or help him but a few Kanakas, who were willing enough, but could do nothing.  The sight of him made me sick and faint.  Poor fellow!  During the four months that I lived upon the beach, we were continually together, in work, and in our excursions in the woods and upon the water.  I felt a strong affection for him, and preferred him to any of my own countrymen there; and I believe there was nothing which he would not have done for me.  When I came into the oven he looked at me, held out his hand, and said, in a low voice, but with a delightful smile, ``Aloha, Aikane!  Aloha nui!’’ I comforted him as well as I could, and promised to ask the captain to help him from the medicine-chest, and told him I had no doubt the captain would do what he could for him, as he had worked in our employ for several years, both on shore and aboard our vessels on the coast.  I went aboard and turned into my hammock, but I could not sleep.

Thinking, from my education, that I must have some knowledge of medicine, the Kanakas had insisted upon my examining him carefully; and it was not a sight to be forgotten.  One of our crew, an old man-of-war’s-man of twenty years’ standing, who had seen sin and suffering in every shape, and whom I afterwards took to see Hope, said it was dreadfully worse than anything he had ever seen, or even dreamed of.  He was horror-struck, as his countenance showed; yet he had been among the worst cases in our naval hospitals.  I could not get the thought of the poor fellow out of my head all night,—­ his dreadful suffering, and his apparently inevitable horrible end.