The Portland daily press., 1862-10-22
A Beautiful Incident.
The most beautiful and affecting incident

The most beautiful and affecting incident
associated with shipwreck, is the following:
The Grosvenor an East Indiaman, home
ward bound, goes ashore on the coast of CAT
fraria. 1t is resolved that the officers, passen-
gers and crew, in number one hundred and
thirty-five souls, shall endeavor to penetrate
on foot, across trackless deserts infested by
wild beasts and cruel savages, to the Dutch
settlements at the Cape OF Good Hope. With
this forlorn object before them they finally
separate into two parties, never more to meet
on earth. There is a solitary child among the
passengers, little boy of seven years old, who
has no relation there; and when the lst par
ty is moving away he cries after some member
Of it who has been kind to him. The crying
OF child might be supposed to be a little
thing to men in such great extremity; but 1t
touches them, and he is mediately taken in
to the detachment-as sacred charge. He
is pushed on a little raft across broad rivers by
the swimming sailors; they carry him by turns
through the deep sand and long grass, he pa
tiently walking at all other times: they share
with him such putrid fish as they find to eat
they lie down and wait for him when the
rough carpenter, who becomes his especial
friend, lags behind. Beset by lions and tigers,
by savages, by thirst and hunger, by death in
crowd Of ghastly shades, they never-oh.
Father of all mankind, thy name be blessed
for it!-forget this child. The captain stops
exhausted, and his faithful coxswain goes back
and is seen to sit down by his side, and neith-
er Of the two shall be any more beheld until
the last great day; but, as the rest go on for
their lives, they take the child with them The
carpenter dies Of poisonous berries eat in star
walton; and the steward, succeeding to the
command of the party, succeeds to the sacred
guardianship of the child. God knows all he
does for the poor baby. He cheerfllly carries
him in his arms when he himselfis weak and
i'll; how he feeds him when he himself is
griped with want; how he folds his ragged
jacket around him, lays his little warm lace
with woman's tenderness upon his sunburnt
breast, soothes him in his suferings, sings to
him as he Hnps along, unmindfnl of his own
parched and bleeding feet Divided for few
days from the rest, they dig a grave in the
sand and bury their good friend the cooper
these two companions alone in the wilderness
and the time comes when they are both i'll,
and beg their wretched partners in despair, re-
ducing and few in number now, to wait by
them one day. They wait by them one day;
they wait by them two days. On the morning
of the third they move very softly about in
making their preparations for the resumption
Of their journey, for the child is sleeping by
the fire, and 1t Is agreed with one consent that
he shall not be disturbed until the last moment.
The moment comes-the fire is dying-and the
child Is dead.
His faithful friend, the steward, fingers but
q little while behind him. His grief was great.
He staggers on for few days. lies down in the
wilderness, and dies. But he shall be reunited
In his immortal spirit-who can doubt it?-
with the child, where he and the poor carpen-
ter shall be raised up with the words, Insomuch
as ye have done it unto the least of these, We
have done it unto me'