HEROIC DEED BY ENGLISHWOMEN IN AFRICA.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXVIII, Issue 8472, 24 January 1891, Page 2 (Supplement)

HEROIC DEED BY ENGLISHWOMEN IN AFRICA.

" Vindex," writing to the Times with reference to the stories of. African horrors which are now engaging so much notice, invites attention to "another picture of English conduct." Many years have elapsed since its occurrence, but it is only within the past few weeks that the last of the two actors in the scene passed away. The writt-" .v* :—On one of the South Sea Islands tl.v King Tanoa ordered that fourteen women, prisoners of war, should be killed, offered in sacrifice, and then be cooked and oaten in honour of some important visitors at Bau. There was a mission station at Viwa, occupied by Mr. and Mrs. Calvert and Mr. and Mrs. Lyth. The men of the party were away on a distant island when the dreadful tidings reached Viwa; but at once these noble women resolved at all hazards—and what awful hazards ! — attempt to rescue the victims. Taking a canoe, they rowed themselves across to Bau, and before they reached the shore the firing of muskets, piercing l shrieks, and the beating of the death drum told that the butchery had begun. Undeterred by the horrors of the scene, they thrust their way through the maddened crowd of cannibals into the house of King Tanoa, where entrance was forbidden to all women excepting those belonging to the household. With the offering of a whale's tooth in each hand they sought to propitiate the King, and then pleaded with such intensity for the lives of their dark sisters that he was overcome, and saying, "Those who are dead are dead, but those who are still alive shall live," he ordered the five survivors to be given into their charge. Some time afterwards, when Captain Erskine, "R.N., was cruising amongst the South Sea Islands, he wrote, after visiting Viwa and Bau, and meeting Mrs. Lyth and Mrs. Calvert, " If anything could have increased our admiration of their heroism, it was the unaffected manner in which, when pressed by us to relate the circumstances of their awful visit, they spoke of it as the simple performance of an ordinary duty,"