232 
SOUTH SEA 
the groan of anguish proclaimed the aching side and 
burning head. 
An old woman one day urgently requested ine to 
accompany her to her son’s house to witness his suffer- 
ings and try to relieve him. I found him stretched 
upon his low bed, his once fine frame wasted from 
long continued disease. I shall never forget the poor 
woman’s affecting conduct as I administered some medi- 
cine to her suffering son ; with what intense fervour the 
fond mother blessed the medicine and the hand that gave 
it,— how hope sprang uppermost in her imagination,— 
how powerfully maternal love evinced itself,— what 
fervent pleading to heaven was made use of by the dis- 
tracted mother as she gazed with the purest affection 
upon her unfortunate child. All that I could do to 
relieve their sufferings I did with that kind of pleasure 
which evinces itself w r hen we feel that we have been 
doing good. And when the time arrived for taking our 
departure from this scene of romance— this garden of 
the tropics— this grand natural aviary— I received many 
sincere thanks from the people who dwelt within its 
shades. 
