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NATIVE MISSIONARY WORK-INDIA.

[MAY,

but meditate upon God and his word, and on this account we have all stopped here to-day." The woman said, "Baee, if you know of any medicine, or any religious rite that will do me any good, please tell me, and I will do it, if I can only have these eyes well again, and I will never, as long as life lasts, forget the favour conferred upon me. Alas! alas! why did God inflict such pain upon me?" As soon as she said this she began to cry again, and, seeing this, I could not restrain my tears, and said to her, "Baee, I am sorry to see you in such pain; I cannot help crying even. But what can I do for you? If there were any remedy in my power, I would remove your pain at once." The woman, crying, said, "Such kind and sweet words I have never before heard. How wonderful, that you, being an utter stranger to me, should pity me and look at these eyes.' "So saying, she held her eyes open with her hands, and showed them to me. They had become so inflamed, and looked so red, that I could not bear to look at them. I felt at that moment grateful to God for having kept my eyes so well hitherto. I then said to the woman, "Baee, no one can look at your eyes without feeling pity for you. All are bound to do what they can for the comfort of those who are in trouble and pain." The woman replied, "Who is there that feels so? I need not go far for examples. My own brother, born next after me, lives here, but he takes no thought for me. What, then, can be expected of his wife? So far from inquiring into and relieving my wants, she puts me to doing a great deal of work, although I am in so much pain with my eyes, and I go groping my way along, carrying the dishes to the river to wash them, and back again. What shall I say, Baee? To-day I felt disgusted and vexed with my work, and my eyes pained me so much that I could not go home, and I said to myself, that whatever be the consequence, I would stay here in the temple, and if God shows mercy, and makes my eyes well, then, and then only, would I put my foot outside and go home; and if I die, I might as well die here. Bace, I am very tired of my life, and my only wish now is to be freed from the oppression of this sister-in-law." I then said to her, "I feel great pity for you on hearing of these afflictions which you have to endure. Still all these are only for a short time, and will soon pass away. Why, then, do you look to these gods of stone? They have no power whatever to give you sight, to relieve you in any way. Do not, then, put your confidence in these gods, and go not after them. If you do, it will be your everlasting ruin. We need one good guide who can see, and even though he be only one, it makes no difference, He will take care of the blind, and lead them on after Him, and deliver them from all evil." The woman said, "What divine teacher (sudgooroo) is there then, who will take us out of the mire, and give us sight, and put us in the right way? No such one can be found anywhere on earth." I replied that I was rejoiced to find that she understood what I said, and that she was interested in it. She said, "Why should I not understand? You are of our people, and talk just as we do: all the difference is, that you have embraced another religion." I answered, "And if there were not even this difference, it would be well. How happy I should be if you would only apply for salvation to the same Saviour whom I have embraced."

(To be continued.)

HOUSES IN THE SAMOA, OR NAVIGATORS' ISLANDS. IMAGINE a gigantic bee-hive, thirty feet in diameter, a hundred in circumference, and raised from the ground about four feet, by a number of short posts, at intervals of four feet from each other all round, and you have a good idea of the appearance of a Samoan house. The spaces between these posts, which may be called open doors or windows, all round the house, are shut in at night by roughly plaited cocoa-nut leaf blinds. During the day the blinds are pulled up, and all the interior exposed to a free current of air. The floor is raised six or eight inches with rough stones, then an upper layer of smooth pebbles, then some cocoa-nut leaf mats, and then a layer of finer matting. Houses of important chiefs are erected on a raised platform of stones three feet high. In the centre of the house there are three tall posts or pillars, supporting the ridge pole. These are the main props of the building. The space between the rafters is filled up with what they call ribs, viz. the wood of the breadfruit tree, split up into small pieces and joined together. All are kept in their places by cross pieces, made fast with cinet. The whole of this upper cage-like work looks compact and tidy, and, at the first glance, is admired by strangers as being alike novel, ingenious, and

neat.

The thatch is laid on with great care and taste. The long dry leaves of the sugar-cane are strung on to pieces of reed. They are made fast to the reed by overlapping the one end of the leaf and pinning it with the rib of the cocoa-nut leaflet, run through from leaf to leaf horizontally. This thatching, if well done, will last for seven years. To collect the sugar-cane leaves is the work of the women. Zinc, felt, and other contrivances, are being tried by European residents; but, for coolness and ventilation, nothing surpasses the thatch. These great circular roofs are so constructed that they can be lifted bodily off the posts, and removed. There is not a single nail in the whole building; all is made fast with cinet. As Samoan houses often form presents, fines, dowries, as well as articles of barter, they are frequently removed from place to place. The arrangement of the houses in a village has no regard whatever to order. You rarely see three houses in a line. Every one puts his house on his little plot of ground, just as the shade of the trees, the direction of the wind, the height of the ground, &c., may suit his fancy.

A house, after the usual Samoan fashion, has but one apartment. If you peep into a Samoan house at midnight, you will see five or six low oblong tents, made of native cloth, strung up here and there throughout the house. They shut out the mosquitoes, and enclose a place some eight feet by five; and these said tent-looking places may be called the bed-rooms of the family. Four or five mats laid loosely, the one on the top of the other, form the bed. The pillow is a piece of thick bamboo. The bedding is complete with a single sheet of calico or native cloth. After private prayer in the morning, the tent is unstrung, mats, pillow, and sheet rolled together, and laid up overhead on a shelf between the posts in the middle of the house. Hence, to "make the bed" in Samoa is no doubt much the same thing which Peter meant when he said to Æneas (Acts ix. 34), " Arise, and make thy bed."

These rolls of mats and bedding, a basket, a fan or two, and a knife

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HOUSES IN THE SAMOA, OR NAVIGATORS' ISLANDS. [MAY,

stuck into the thatch within reach, a fishing net, a gun strung up along the rafters, a few paddles, a wooden chest in one corner, and a few cocoanut-shell-water-bottles in another, are about all the things in the shape of furniture or property you can see in looking into a Samoan house. The fireplace is about the middle of it. It is merely a circular hollow, two or three feet in diameter, a few inches deep, and lined with hardened clay. It is not used for cooking, but for the purpose of lighting up the house at night. Many now-a-days burn an oil lamp instead; and you see in their houses a table it may be, a sofa, a form, a chair or two, a few earthenware dishes, and some other conveniences of civilized life.

House building is a distinct trade in Samoa, and perhaps one among every three hundred men is a master carpenter. This person has in his train some ten or twelve who follow him, some who expect payment from him as journeymen, and others as apprentices, who learn the trade. If a a person wishes a house built, he goes with a fine mat, worth in cash value 20s. or 30s. He tells the carpenter what he wants, and presents him with the mat as a pledge that he will be paid for his work. If he accepts the mat, that also is a pledge that he will undertake the job. Nothing is stipulated as to the cost: that is left entirely to the honour of the employing party. At an appointed time, the carpenter comes with his staff of helpers and learners. Their only tools are a felling axe, a hatchet, and a small adze; and there they sit, chop, chop, chopping, for three, six, or nine months it may be, until the house is finished. Their adze reminds you of ancient Egypt. It is formed by the head of a small hatchet, or any other flat piece of iron fastened to the end of a small piece of wood, eighteen inches long, as its handle. The man whose house is being built provides the carpenters with board and lodging, and is also at hand with his neighbours to help in bringing wood from the bush, scaffolding, and other heavy work. When a house is finished, and all ready for occupation, they have their "house warming," or, as they call it, its oven consecration; and formerly it was the custom to add on to that a heathenish dance, for the purpose, they said, of "treading down the beetles."

The system of a common interest in each other's property is clung to by the Samoans with great tenacity. Not only a house, but also a canoe, a boat, a fine, a dowry, and every thing else requiring an extra effort, is got up in the same way. And the same custom entitles them to beg and borrow from each other to any extent. Boats, tools, garments, money, &c., are all freely lent to each other, if connected with the same tribe or clan. A man cannot bear to be called disobliging. The sick, the aged, the blind, the lame, and even the vagrant, has always a house and home, and food and raiment, as far as he considers he needs it. A stranger may, at first sight, think a Samoan one of the poorest of the poor, and yet he may live ten years with that Samoan, and not be able to make him understand what poverty really is, in the European sense of the word. "How is it?" he will always say. "No food! Has he no friends? No house to live in? Where did he grow? Are there no houses belonging to his friends? Have the people there no love for each other?"-Abridged from the Samoan Reporter.

SHARANPUR, or "The Place of Refuge," is a rising village, inhabited by Christians, near the town of Nasik, in Western India.

It exemplifies a hopeful phase of the Missionary work in India. Every man hath his proper gift of God, who hath set divers orders, and

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SHARANPUR.

[JUNE, bestowed divers talents in his Church; and the proper gift of the Rev. Mr. Price seems to be the conduct of an industrial Christian village. He therefore set to work to found a new Mission settlement in the neighbourhood. The site was chosen, the land taken, a bungalow built, and the commencement made under circumstances of considerable difficulty, and not a little opposition. He called the new settlement Sharanpur, "The Place of Refuge." Some friend seemed to think that the name might have been better selected. "Sharanpur," said he, "means only a refuge sought, whereas this settlement is to be a refuge found: it should, therefore, have been 'Ashraiepur,' instead of 'Sharanpur.'

Mr. Price, however, sticks to his word, having discovered that the word suggested means chiefly a temporal, whereas "Sharan" means a spiritual refuge; and such he desires Sharanpur to be considered.

But after all, names signify but little, if it comes to be clearly understood what they really mean, and Sharanpur is now pretty well understood by the people. The village stands upon a wide and open plain, which slightly rises between two rivers, the Nascadi on the south, and the Godavery, or Gunga, on the north. It contains now a Christian population of 160, an orphanage, a dhurumsala, a hospital, a granary, a school, a church, bungalows, workshops, and cottages for the workpeople of all sorts. Notwithstanding the proximity of the village to two rivers, one of the chief difficulties is that which is felt by so large a portion of India, namely, an insufficient supply of water. But still trees are growing up, gardens are being laid out, and each year adds materially to the green aspect of the village, so necessary to relieve the eye, wearied by the surrounding dry and burning plains. In the distance, on the north bank of the Godavery, a beautiful range of hills makes a fine back-ground, as seen in our engraving: steep precipices of laterite, separated by gorges of great beauty, throwing their shadows of everchanging loveliness, give variety to the landscape; while the city, though only a mile and a-half to the east, is entirely hidden by trees, and by an undulation of the ground.

When we reached Mr. Price's house, after visiting the city, an old man was at the door, and the Missionary, who has a competent knowledge of medicine, was ministering to his bodily ailments. A bullock had gored the poor man severely, and he was asking for some plaister, assured, though a heathen, that he would obtain there whatever aid Mr. Price could afford him.

The first thing which struck me at Sharanpur was an air of business. Everybody seemed to have work to do, and not to be reluctant to do it either. A very un-Indian-like feeling pervaded the place. The first sounds that greeted my ears in the morning, soon after daylight, were the welcome accents of a hymn, sung by Christian children's voices; and, soon after, the humanizing strains of a harmonium made me feel that I was in a land of song, where praises to God mingled with labours for man in happy combination.

After breakfast, we went out to look round the workshops. The people were assembled, tools were at work, names were being called, the busy noise of hammering, and planing, and sawing, and turning, was beginning; mail carts, in every stage, from spick-spanness to dilapidation, standing about in all sorts of postures; some balancing on newly-painted wheels