Page:Williams and Calvert, Fiji and the Fijians, New York, 1860.djvu/467

VIWA AKD MBAr. 435 solitary island, three hundred miles north of Fiji, where the work was carried on in a cheering way by Native Teachers. At the beginning of 1849, in spending the Sabbath at Mbau, after preaching at Sembi, Mr. Calvert was pleased to find that Thakombau had ordered that a feast appointed for that day should be postponed till the Monday. It was evident that instruction was beginning to tell on the Chief. If lotu people were at hand, he generally wished them to ask a blessing on the food before him, and sometimes bowed his head. He would even reprove Chiefs for speaking against Christianity, saying that it was " the one true thing in the world." He warned the priests that their occupation would soon be gone, encouraged some of his women to continue religious, and reproved professed Christians whose conduct was inconsistent. Greater intimacy with the Mbau people proved their superiority to the rest of Fijians ; and, while it marked them out as the dominant tribe, showed how wise had been the selection of this dialect for the translation of the Scriptures. The people generally evinced a desire to hear about religion, and received the Missionary with kindness. Hearing that a woman was near death, having, as the people said, been struck by an offended god, Mr. Calvert, accompanied by Ngavindi, the Chief of the Fishermen, and his priest, went to visit her, and found the house full of people. The poor creature had not spoken for eighteen hours, but was quite warm, with a regular pulse. Mr. Calvert inquired for her husband, who was sent for. He came, well dressed in a large piece of white na- tive cloth, and a piece of coloured stuff tied round his body, for his strangling cord. On his head he had a red comforter, and in his hand a pine-apple club. On being asked why he was thus decked out, he replied : " In order to die with my wife, Sir ! " The Missionary said : " The age for such deeds of darkness is past here. You must not be so foolish, nor yet so faint-hearted, as to refuse to live, that you may remember and mourn for your wife, and attend to her grave." He per- sisted in his purpose, saying, " I shall die, Sir. If I live, I shall be a ruined man, without a friend ; and I shall not have any person to pre- pare my food. And, seeing that the report has gone forth to you gen- tlemen that I have resolved to die, die I must ; and, should no one con- sent to strangle me, I shall leap from a precipice." Mr. Calvert, hav- ing inquired into the case, gave the best remedy he had at command, — a large dose of cocoa-nut oil. The husband supported his speechless wife, and said, " Ay, you perhaps think you'll die alone ! No, no ! we will both go together." This man was a priest, and on being asked by