SAVU.

Maori Messenger : Te Karere Maori, Volume VI, Issue 135, 25 February 1854, Page 4

SAVU.

Savu is the principal of a group of three small Islands, lying between Flores and the North Coast of New Holland. Of this Island Captain Cook has furnished an interesting nmi detailed ilcscrijitinn from llie information ol one of llio residents of llio Hutch Kasl India Company, wlio had resided llicrc many years. The Natives of Savn aro below the middle stature, and the women in particular are extremely short and squat. Their colour is a dark firown, and they have universally Mark shiney hair. Snr.li of them as aro most exposed to the. air,.arc nearly as dark as the inhabitants of New Holland, while persons of the higher rank are almost as lair as Europeans. The men arc in general well shaped, vigorous, and active; in stature and features they dilTer more than the people of the same "country generally do; but the women on the other hand have all the same cast of countenance. These islanders seem to enjoy good health i and a long life. When a person is attacked with the small pox they carry iiim to a sequestered spot, far from any human habitation, and leave the disease to take its course, merely supplying the patient with food, which" ihcy reach to him at the end of a long stick. Savu is divided into five Principalities, each of which is governed by an independent ltajah, and these Princes are said to have lived in peace from time immemorial, which is a remarkable circumstance, considering the courage and warlike disposition asciMicd to these people. The ltajali of Seba, in whose territory seemed to possess great authority, though he was not surrounded by much pomp. He was the fattest man in the. whole Island. All over the ICasl, from Turkey to Japan, nay, in almost all |he islands of "the South Sea, corpulence is a quality llial commands respect. The chief thing on which these people pride themselves is a long line of honorable ancestors; and the respect paid to antiquity seems to ho carried to a greater length here than in any other country. A house which lias been inhabited for several generations becomes almost sacred; and there aro few articles of necessity or luxury which are deemed so valuable as stones thai have been long used for sitting upon, and thereby rendered smooth. Those who have it in their power, to buy such stones, or who possess them by inheritance, placo them around their houses, and they serve as scats for tho family. —The World in Miniature.