Reading for Everybody.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 2419, 6 February 1909, Page 9 (Supplement)

Reading for Everybody.

LOST IN THE AUSTRALIAN BUSH (By Einilo Donnier iu the Loudon “Field,”) To 'be lost in the vast Australian bush during a season of drought may safely he regarded as one of the most terrible experiences which can befall a man, and the list of explorers, prospectors, and others who have perished by the cruel death of thirst is unfortunately a long one. I had come down from Wilcannia, on the- Dueling, to Adelaide with,.a friend for a holiday after a rather lengthy spell of monotonous station Tife, and hearing that things were booming in the great silver mines of (Broken Hill, in New South Wales, rue decided to try our duck there. My experiences of the Australian hush were at that time rather limited, but my mate, a* native of South Australia, was an excellent buslnnan, as lie had often proved himself during the time .we had worked together on. the station.' Wo had aho conic across a miner who having-acco 1 npl;shed the journey on foot himself, gave us full directions as to certain Handmarks, such as blazed trees, and carefully instructed us as to where we should strike off to find water. With rather heavy swags, but light hearts, wo started merrily off, little, dreaming of the trouble in'store for us. For the first week or ten days we managed very well, coming across farms and stations where we could obtain rations and water, but gradually things began to get decidedly worse with-us as wo reached the lless populated country, bub still wo trudged hopefully onward in spite of the heat and the scarcity of water. A WILD GOOSE CHASE.

Late one'night as we were going through an outlying cattle station, we struck a lonely hut where we wei c kindly welcomed by an old iSeou-u shepherd, who was genuinely glad to sec fresh faces in his isolated little dwelling. Wo told the old man of our plans, but he shook his head very doubtfu’llyand strongly -advised us to turn back, as the country before its was in a shocking state. He said that the few creeks and lagoons were all empty, while the dams had been dried up for some considerable time. But Charlie, my mate, had made up his mind to push on if humanely a ole to do so, and I was naturally ro;yino-. on his thorough bush knowieogo. Tlie old shepherd on hearing our decision gave us full directions as -anas he was able, explaining to us the exact position of certain dams where we might find a little water. Early the. following morning w® started off again rested refreshed with our water bags and b hies full having taken leave of our kind host. However, on the second < a> after we. had left the tart wol.ad«jt» no trace of <a dam, and oui w.tte p a ,r S were empty. The heat ms to - rifle, and at times the .tatrmng tarn , filliug our boots,• made -walks.m pie agony, by the evenin o . , vainly trying to.quench cm thnst by chewing tobacco. Wo had b<mli..\ neither see nor tatu ta, y th.ng to indicate human mlNed,” was his greeting on mv return, “nothing? I have been bushed before, but it- stnues me that - "nay fell mto°a moody silence, and I flung • /imrn beside him witn a ieei s?fe*M#lSK EsSitiKp?, At last Charilie fell aHeep muriuuiiog incoherently, and bad^ dozed off wmii _ dingoes close the howling of or« dAn oe ■r’S S S, wAnali right °f •v.-flb : mil of fools wo have now! \.hat a 1“ , pj , nV cr! been not to .see tne■ deaj j. Why! there is the DaH = l iookc d it could nor be fa* 0 gee notheagerly around, b - calm ingbut bush, m. the briland cheer less ul the ■ Qn air Rant moon, y v , as f ar 4rom of hopefu'lnefe companion, feeling, I turned k o ]i chap, saying, Hie down, and keep quieti b ~ d tlul3 I water bags mate, an »*« slumber. c n jght dragged So *e “ore, thankful to laughing ppeir almost human a tree, neat >O., • . o ck us iu our laughter scenmd n<yW con;sclo us, misery. ClmH ex p a umed. Ho tried hut thoroughly t() ino> ~>u t again and , s 0; his tongue be.was unable to My mg doub.e n { mouth, and clave to the 'root o SAVa ii o w. I 1 u aS tS C k y as I look back on the really tlnnk, t he only thing herroi of it ,ai , , r , oAng mad was . which saved TOP fto™ l to put the strain which I \ j • for-the upon my natui-ally slov im Al , sake, of energy at once, with /an gw;a g, glared Charlie -picked . x - , anc \. pointat me toward U an, ing into the d <■> . - • p looked in beckoned me to saw m the direction Wue ppe near distance lake ' N FARING THE end.. - yefotfVf S» si taom'S.:’. LaSSed ojv through Ej *e grass, heedless brambles as though the- scrub, wo toicea on • was - always tlie, But ’ I stance off when we thought we twice walked far enough to reach h. ad wl nmst have been struggling on as we were ascending a ' °..i • ... . .. ra ae ever before, us. 'By 4 ltb my tongue was getting so swollen that

1 could hardly speak, while I could see; in spite of my half-maddened senses, that my poor mate would not last much longer. He was absolutely past speech or effort of any' kind, just babbling dike an infant of ten months. As a last despairing attempt 1 crawled back to a dead tree, ;a little, diighcr on tdio ridge, and managed to set it on fire; its blazing branches might, perchance, . give a signal of distress, and what did dt matter now -if ,1 sot the bush on fire !

No torture could be greater than the death we were slowly but surely facing. By tlie time the tree was properly blazing I had managed to got back to Charlie, who was now sitting up, absolutely mad, and gesticulating wildly. Occasionally a smile would flit across his painstricken face as he seemed to be living over again some, boyish freak. His bloodshot eyes seemed almost to he leaving the.it sockets, when all at once lie, jumped up again, and staggered forward to some imaginary water, ho fell, and I know at once he was dead. I sank down besido. him and knew no more. On opening my eyes a black fellow was leaning over mo moistening my lips from his canvas water bag. My head and eyes were very painful, and, as drop by drop, be managed to get the precious liquid slowly through my parched lips and over my swollen tongue the floppy agony grew gradually less, and wheii at last T managed to drink a little it seemed as if I could have drained a lake. The black fellow had a bev with bmp' and their ponies were tethered dose by. He tended me for hours, until at last I had sufficiently revived to he assisted on to one. of the ponies. Then for the first time he spoke to me.“You die um very soon mo not come, hut now good.”. Then, pointing to poor Charlie, he said: “Me bury um b.y’m bye.” As he .spoke he covered my poor mate with sonic houghs, and catching hold of my horse’s bridle he asked where I warned to'go. When I told him, ho replied: “This track no good; plenty white man die here.” I asked him how he found me, and lie explained that he belonged to a station some few miles distant. Tie had been sent after some horses, and had seen the smoke of the burning tree, and having found us he thought at first that wfT were both dead. When we arrived at the station the situation -was explained, and with a week’s kindly nursing I was once more able to take to the road, this time being on the right track for Broken Hill.

suit being that out of revenge for not having ‘plenty dashed’ them — meaning paid them well —they lot the boat swing broadside on to the shore, and the next heavy surf turned it over, landing my luggage.'and myself in the water.”

A STORY OF COLONEL BURNABY. Mfi Prior knows Iris Africa well. In north, south, east, and west of the Dark Continent he has seen service, and it was during the Egyptian campaign of "82 that 110 'witnessed some of the most "desperate fighting in modem warfare.» “I recall,” ho said, while chatting about his Egyptian experiences, “the figure, of .Burnaby as I saw him last,-shortly before his heroic death... Three of us stood chatting together before the. Battle of Abu Klea, when Burnaby said, AVe are too close; the enemy have got our range; we must stand apart.’ A little later lie rushed' out of the line to the laid of two wounded men — an act which, had he survived, would have won him the Victoria Cross. A NEWSPAPER SCOOT.

“Did you over hear, by tho way, how the ‘Standard’ 'was able to announce that peace, had been signed between Briton and Boer' after the war of 1881, not only before any other newspaper had the information, but also before, the Government had received, the official news from General iSir Evelyn Wood? “I knew one of- Sir Evelyn Wood’s aides-de-camp, and 1 asked him Mo give., me the quiet tip when Kruger had .signed the peace document and Sir Evelyn was about to sign. The document was signed at O’Neil’s farm, at the bottom of Majuba Hill, and a whole crowd of war correspondents waited outside, for the official information. I.had arranged, however, that as so,on as the process of signing had begun tho aide-de-camp should come outside and wink at 111 c, while I signail'led to Cameron, tho ‘Standard’ correspondent, who was lying 011 the ground seine distance away with a horse behind a boulder, by raising my llat. “The whole tiling worked exactly as I had planned, and Cameron was travelling as fast as his horse could, take him to the camp telegraph station, when Sir Evelyn came out of the house and said to us, ‘Gentlemen, I have to announce that peace lias been signed, but I shall] block the telegraph wires until my official dispatch has reached the Government.’' And for many a long day it was a puzzle to General Wood as to how the news leaked out before the Government had received his message. AFRICA’S STANDARD JOKE. “I never think of my South African campaigning days,” Mr Trior continued, “without recalling that it was in the Boer War of 1881 that I was credited Avitlr making one of the standard jokes of South Africa. In those days we generally travelled from one town to another in heavy, uncomfortable post carts, usually drawn by six horses. The roads were of the worst possible description. But 1 did hundreds of miles in these.post carts, and on one occasion, having a cheery Colonial companion by my side, he MHfiaf teTV»^^W«Hnrtiw:' Careful]v readjusting my ptncc-ne/.. 1 replied ‘that I thought it was a fine country to live. —or —out of.’ “He apparently thought this such a. good joke, that at the next tow 11 he°to!d it at a public Junchcon-tabiu and evidently it found its way into the paper, for to my astonishment 1 had made wliat was considered—and is now- —one of the standard jokes of South Africa.” " MILLIONAIRES WHO PLAYED MARBLES. Air Prior was 'in- South Africa the time of the Jameson Raid, and he recalled some interesting facts concerning a visit he paid to Dr Jameson and his millionaire companions who engineered, the Raid, when 1 were in prison at Pretoria. “I obtained written permits to visit tlie prisoners from. Kruger and General Joubert,” said Mr I “and found Dr Jameson 111 a cell by himself, while eight other of the Reformers were in a yard close, by. Ocher of the Reformers were in a large quadrangle, "they amused t/tiemselves by playing marbles, while .another amusement was to take it 111 turns to serve behind an. impromptu Par. Bettington, of Bcttmgton s Horse, looked very picturesque with a towel tied round his head sci vmg drinks. I tried my hand at the bar business, and if tho worst should, over come to the worst, 'and there is no further use for the services of a wandering sketcher, I shall bo able to turn barman with some hope,of earning a" livelihood.” '