A VOICE FROM THE DEAD.
Just before the last call of the reaper whose powerful scythe severed the connections of King Kalakaua with mundane matters, His Majesty was visited by Mr. Louis Glass, agent of the Edison Phonograph Co., and by request spoke into a cylinder of the machine. His Majesty spoke the following, as an experimental trial, having intended, when in better health to speak more at length. The Editor of the Paradise of the Pacific obtained the following carefully prepared translation of His Majesty’s words, the rendition being made by Mr. James I Dowsett, Jr., of Honolulu, at his request:
“Aloha kaua—Aloha kaua. Ke hoi nei no paha makou ma keia hope aku i Hawaii, i Honolulu. A ilaila oe e hai aku ai oe i ka lehulehu i kau mea e lohe ai ianei.”
[Translation.]
“We greet each other—We greet each other. We will very likely hereafter go to Hawaii, to Honolulu. There you will tell my people, what you have heard me say Here.”
(Paradise of the Pacific, 2/1891, p. 2)
Paradise of the Pacific, Volume IV, Number 2. February 1891.
nupepa 
So Kalakaua’s recorded message was directed to the machine itself. It would play the recording when he and it returned to Honolulu, and people there would hear what he said in San Francisco.
He did return to Honolulu, but the machine did not. And he returned dead, alas.
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