Bellows Falls times. [volume] (Bellows Falls, Vt.) 1856-1965, 1866-06-15
A wife's Devotion.

We copy from Hours at Home" the
following interesting narrative, by an
English missionary to the cannibaIs of
New Zealand:
After crossing Muddy creek, (the creek
on the banks of which we had encamped)
with no small difficulty on account of its
muddy bottom and great width, being near
ly a mile across, we arrived toward night
fall of the next day at another creek cali
ed Little Muddy areek Here we found
living in a log hut white man, old and
grey-headed, with his wife, native and
old like himself, but q, how frightfully
hideous and ugly! All her flesh seemed
to have dried up, and her wrinkled skin
hung in loose folds about her person; her
face was all disfgured with lines of tat
tooing, and her eyes oil bloodshot and
bleared with the long effects of the wood
fires she cooked over. She gave us, how
ever, an excellent supper of fresh-caught
fish, and potatoes, with good hampers and
hot tea. / could not, however. take my
eyes off her all the time we was in the
hut; after supper, Leonard and went
out to smoke our pipes. vHa
Leonard" / exclaimed, "did you ever
see more hideous creature than that wo-
! man is /? Preserve me from native women
if she is specimen of Maori beauty"
"Ah, STRIP said thin quivering voice
l recognized as her husbands, g she may
!. be ugly in .ynnr ewes. bnt she is not in
since l ran away from a whale-ship and
took to living here among the savages, for
warrant you they were savage enough
then. helped to build for the chief of
the tribe came among boat, and he
gave me the woman as a reward for my
services. She was good enough looking
then, and she helped me build house,
planted my potatoes, and caught my fish,
cooked my food, and was a faithful and
true wife to me. Some years afterwards !
| fell i'll. The native tohungas, or doc
tors, tried their hands at curing me, and
it was not for want of nursing on her part
that did not get well howsoever | got
worse instead of better, and Haru, my
wife, began to tangi GfreD for me-
One day she heard from some of her
friends who had just returned from Auck-
land, (the chief English settlement,) that
there was a pakaba, Ga white man, there
who could cure me; and the next day she
started to see him in her canoe, but she
had well nigh twenty miles to walk as
well before she got there The third day
she came back, her sister having nursed
me meanwhile, and brought me some
medicine it did me some good, but could
not cure me. She told me the doctor
wanted to see me, but could not or would
not come out to me. After weeks trial
of the stuff he had sent me, and my being
no great deal better, she determined to
take me to him, and so she put me in her
canoe, and then carried me the twenty
miles on her back-ay, l tell yc, every
foot of the way; and l was there well
nigh two months in little hut she built
me herself outside the town and every
week she went backward and forward be-
tween here and there laden with the
weeks provisions. At length l got well
and came back with her home; and ever
since then she has been, ay, and is now,
beautiful in my eyes letting alone that
she has twice saved my life from the Mig
gers, OF the Ngatiwais, and once from
drowning. / would like to know" said
he, "what white woman would have done
the like; and Itell yeI believe God AL
mighty will give her place in Heaven,
ugly and dark though she be, and half
heathen as you would call her."
found afterwards that the mans tale
was true, and must confess the narrative
of his softened very much her bodily in
firmitics and appearance in my eyes,"