476 
POLYNESIAN RESEARCHES. 
whilst the objects that often give such a charm to 
rural village scenery, and awaken so many ideas of 
contentment and happy simplicity in connexion with 
the peasantry of England, may be witnessed throughout 
the South Sea Islands. 
In the month of December, 1818, when the Haweis 
sailed from Huahine, on her first voyage to New South 
Wales, Mr. and Mrs. Orsmond left us, as we mutually 
supposed, on a visit of a few months to the island of 
Raiatea, for the purpose of receiving Mr. Threlkeld’s 
attentions at a season of unusual domestic anxiety. 
For two or three months contrary winds prevented any 
intercourse between us, when at length Mr. Orsmond’s 
boat arrived, with the unexpected and melancholy 
tidings of the death of Mrs. Orsmond, which had taken 
place on the 6th of January, 1819. She had survived 
but a few hours the birth of an infant daughter, by 
whom, in the space of five short days, she was followed 
to the eternal world, and, we believe, to the abodes of 
holy and unending rest. The disconsolate partner of 
her days was thus left a widower and childless, far 
from all the alleviation which the sympathies and 
attentions of kindred and friends in such seasons 
impart,—a lone wanderer, amid a rude untutored race, 
in a solitary island of the sea. The kindness and the 
sympathy of his fellow-labourers mitigated, however, 
in a great degree, the poignancy of his distress ; and 
the promises of inspired truth, with the consolations of 
religion, supported his mind under a bereavement which 
he had sustained in circumstances unusually distress¬ 
ing. The people around were touched with a feeling 
of compassion; but although their commiseration was 
fully appreciated by their teacher, there was not that 
