Democratic Sentinel, Volume 17, Number 51, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 January 1894 — Faithful Maoris. [ARTICLE]

Faithful Maoris.

That was a touching story told in the papers the other day about the accident in the Motu bush, twentyfour miles from Opotiki, says the Aukland News. A party were clearing brush, when a European got his leg broken. One of the Maoris bound up his leg with a skill that subsequently elicited the praise of the surgeon; then five white and five Maoris started to carry the wounded man to Opotiki by the Motu road, which for miles is a mere ledge on the side of a precipice. The rivers were in flood and the fords washed The waters were up to the necks of the bearers, and She tallest of the men had to hold the stretcher up above their heads. They had to start in the evening, when tired by a hard day’s work. The Maoris behaved like men and heroes, some of them taking a double turn in the carrying when from excessive fatigue their white companions were unequal to it. When they got to the journey’s end they fell on the ground and went fast asleep. I have known of a good many accidents in the bush at the Thames and elsewhere, and the behavior of men on these occasions really an honor to human nature. And an incident such as I have narrated shows how much of the heroic there is in the nature of the Maori.