or song was needed. To compose was as natural to meé as to breathe; and this gift of nature, never having been suffered to fall into disuse, remains a source of the greatest consolation to this day. I have never yet numbered my compdsitions, but am sure that they must yun well up to the hundreds. Of these not more than a quarter have been printed, but the most popular have been in such demand that several editions have been exhausted. Hours of which it is not yet in place to speak, which I might have found long and lonely, passed quickly and cheerfully by, occupied and soothed by the expression of my thoughts in music; and even when I was denied the aid of any instrument I could transcribe to paper the tones of my voice.
In the early years of the reign of Kamehameha V. he brought to my notice the fact that the Hawaiian people had no national air. Each nation, he said, but ours had its expression of patriotism and love of country in its own music; but we were using for that purpose on state occasions the time-honored British anthem, "God save the Queen." This he desired me to supplant by one of my own composition, In one week’s time I notified the king that I had completed my task. The Princess Victoria had been the leader cf the choir of the Kawaiahao church; but upon her death, May 29, 1866, I assumed the leadership. It was in this building and by that choir that I first introduced the "Hawaiian National Anthem." The king was present for the purpose of criticising my new composition of both words and music, and was liberal in his commendations to me on my success. He admired not only the
