CONJUGAL DEVOTION.

Maori Messenger : Te Karere Maori, Volume 1, Issue 19, 13 September 1849, Page 3

CONJUGAL DEVOTION.

In the early numbers of the "Maori Messenger," we devoted a very considerable portion of its space in illustration of the Sandwich Islands, and the rapid advance of their interesting inhabitants in the arts of industry and civilization. Although we have, for Boine time past, been silent with respect to them, we have yet much to say concerning the people of that beautiful groupe. At present, however, we must content ourselves with an extract from the travels of Sir George Simpson, which pourtrays a wife's devotion iu a manner the most touching and singular. We need hardly premise that the natives of the Sandwich Islands are unequalled swimmers, or that a larjte portion of their time is spent in the sea, where all classes are continually sporting 1 In the great majority of cases, says Sir George Simpson, the females excel the men in agility and science, as swimmers, and in point of strength and endurance frequently surpass them. The following pathetic instance had occurred a short time prior to Sir George's arrival at Honolulu. '* A man and his wile, both Christians, were passengers in a schooner, which foundered at a considerable distance from the land. All tho natives on board promptly took refuge in the sea; and the man in question, who had just celebrated divine service in the ill-fated vessel, called his fellows, some of them being converts as well as himself, around him to offer up another tribute of praise and supplication from the deep in which they were struggling, to tarry, with a combination of courage and humility perhaps unequalled in the world's history, in order deliberately to worship God in that universal temple, under whose restless pavement the speuker and most of his hearers were destined to find their graves. '• The man and his wife had each succeeded in procuring the support of a covered bucket by way of buoy ; and away they struck with the rest for Knhoolawr, finding themselves

rwxt morning alone in the ocean, after a whole afternoon .and night of privation and toil. To aggravate their misfortunes, the wife's bucket went to pieces soon after daylight, so that she had to make the best of her way without assistance or relief; and, in the course of the afternoon, the man became too weak to proceed, till his wife, to a certain extent, restored his strength by shampooing him in the water. They had now Kahoolawe in full view, after having been about four-and-twenty hours on their dreary voyage. In spite, however, of the cheering sight, the man again fell into such a state of exhaustion, (that the woman took his bucket for herself, giving him, at the eame time, tiic hair of her head as a towingline; and, when even this exertion proved to, be too much for him, the faithful creature, after trying in vain to rouse him to prayer, took his arms round her neck, holding themtogether with one hand, and making with the other for the shore. When a very trifling distance remained to bo accomplished, she discovered that he was dead, and, dropping j his corpse, reached the land before night, i having passed over upwards of twenty-five ] miles, during an exposure of nearly thirty J hours. I

" I have been thus particular (says the writer) in detailing this narrative of hardihood am) skill, of piety and affection, because it harmonizes so exactly with my gene.'al plan of presenting, when possible, to the reader, the past and the present, the old and the new, the savage and the civilized, in one and the same view, la the skill and hardihood, we recognize the children of nature and barbarism ; in the affection and piety, the disciples of civilization and Christianity." «