REWARD FOR BRAVERY

New Zealand Times, Volume L, Issue 11422, 19 January 1923, Page 10

REWARD FOR BRAVERY

BLIND FIJIAN AND GIRL. The Governor of Fiji has received advice that the Royal Humane Society’s certificate of merit has been granted to an old blind Fijian named Josefa and a little girl named Marica for their bravery in connection with a boating mishap of the coast of Macuata in May last {states the “New Zealand Herald”). A'dinghy, in which a chief, who was ill and a sufferer from heart disease, was sailing with a boy, capsized, and the two clung to the boat. The only person ashore to notice their plight was the girl Marica, who ran and got a native canoe. The only soul she could find in the town was Josefa. The two of them pushed off and reached the chief, who insisted that the boy and girl go ashore, and he, with Josefa’s aid; would swim ashore. Marica landed the hoy, and pushed out to sea again. When she got near the spot she found poor old Josefa swimming aimlessly about, vainly trying to find Jfjs way to the beach. She gqt him on hoard and safely home. Josefa told a pathetic story. After the children left, the chief and he started to swim ashore, hut soon the chief said, “I am dying, go on,” and aa he spoke he went down Josefa felt him brush as /he sank, and at once dived and managed to seize his chief, and, holding on to him, struck out for the shore. But his years were many, and his strength not great, and after struggling for some time to keep his friend afloat, he had to lot go, and so the chief died. Josefa had a very close call, and hut for Marica would undoubtedly have been drowned.