AUSTRALIAN NEWS.

Evening Star, Volume VII, Issue 2032, 9 November 1869, Page 2

AUSTRALIAN NEWS.

“Playbov,” in the Australasian of October 23, says :—The more that is seen of Manuka the more he is liked. Eight to one could b» had about him this week, but not to money. Should lie continue to gain favor, lie must come to a very sh rt price, as nearly all the books are fu 1 against him. The following is the narrative of the escape of the men submerged in the claim at Ballarat, as given by one of the survivors : From a long conversation with Selman we gathered further details of the men’s dreary prison house. We fell in with him on our way from the m ne. He was under the verandah of his cottage on the Creswick road, leaning in his shirt sleeves upon the fence, and telling an eagerly listening group, what he had seen and heard below. We said, “ Dou’t you want to go to bed ?” and he said “ No. I don’t feel any the worse, thank God. I don’t feel a bit more sore than I have after lying in bed an hour or two longer than usual of a Sunday morning.” We never lost hope any of us. We knew how they were working for us, and that as soon as the water got below the cap we should have air. Our only prayer was to God to give us air, if it would please God to give us that. I never suffered a bit of hunger, but we felt thirst very bad. Sometimes our mouths got quite dry and sticky, and then we put a little water in, and rinsed our mouths. We might all have got up to the surface easy enough if it had not been for the wounded man, but we couldn’t leave him. And when Frank Bennetts and I were going up the jump-up, Mount joy said to us, “Don’t leave me, boys. ” 1 looked at Frank, and Frank looked at me, and neither of us said anything, but we took him up the incline in a truck. The water rose fast up the jump-up, and I could hardly keep my feet on the ladder. I saw it come quick up the shaft, and as soon as it got to the top it rushed a'ong the drive, and rose till it was not thirteen minutes before it was 4ft. 6in. high, just where we got upon the air-p pes. The pipes were in a cross-drive, higher than the other one, and so we were dry all the time, the water being just at our feet. Mountjoy did not complain much of pain. He died in about three-quarters of an hour after we got on the pipes. Onee or twice he cornplaiu- d of thirst, and we gave him water and tea to drink. By-and-by he said, “ turn me on my right side,” and we turned him over, and after a bit he said “ turn me back again, boys,” and we turned him back and he lay quiet, and some of them said he was asleep, but I told them if he was asleep he was iu the long sleep. We took the light and saw that he was not breathing, and then we knew that he was gone. We had lit a candle, and it burned for four or five hours, but then it went out the air was so bad, but I never found the air worse than air I’ve worked in many a time; but then, of course, it. might be worse, as when a man is working be feels it worse. We got sleepy sometimes and dozed a good bit. The young chaps, they laid down and doubled themselves up to sleep very often. We eould hear the cages working in the shaft, and we knew that as soon as the water was below the cap we should have air, and our prayer was to God to give us air. Sometimes we could feel the water sink a little and then rise a little, and sometimes we foncied we could feel a fresh puff of wind, but it might only have been somebody’s breath across our faces or our arms. We had three or four billies of tea. I went and got them, because I knew well u here to find them on ihe nails where they used to be put. We thought, when wo _heard the noise of the hj se and the men in the drive, that it was only Monday morning. The water and slush was prett v deep in the dam behind where the drift had run down, and we went, one of two of us, down to try and get out, but were afraid for all of us to go, as we didn’t know the water was gone out below, and we mightn’t get back again. There was another heap of stuff run down that made another dam, or we could have gone down The air below was worse than it was where we were. I think if they had had a Davey lamp last night (Monday night) they might have got through very well. Every mine ou_ht to have a Davey lamp. The stuff that was run run down was a loose sandy sort of drift, quite easy to move, and Frank was the first to get through the earth, as wo pulled it down with our hands. As soon as the water was lowered in the shaft, it ran back along the drives, and carried laths and candle-boxes aud things with it, and when they got on the hose pipes —I suppose it was—the fresh air came in as free and nice as that hand to the breeze that was blowing adßl his garden while he spoke), and I felt at once I was on the surface, safe. From what others reported of the time below, it appears that Smith or Disney often dreamed as well as dozed. The lad had not lost his gastronomic fancies in that dismal place. Once he said he dreamed he had hold of a loal, and vaj ravenously tearing it to pieces. At another time he dreamed he was “ walking into some tarts.” A diamond from Mudgee, whichwas forwarded to England for examination, has been returned cut and polished, and is declared to be of first quality, and worth at home LSOO. The following telegram from Tasmania appears in the Herald: —Salmon were unmistakably seen in the Derwent near the Falls qn Saturday last, and again yesterday. Parties have gone out angling, Another telegram says:—Grilse are very numerous at the Falls, near New Norfolk. The fish are from two to three feet in length. The information it thoroughly ijf