TERRIBLE SUFFERING.

Grey River Argus, Volume VI, Issue 376, 11 June 1868, Page 3

TERRIBLE SUFFERING.

(From the D'ubbo Despatch.) The following account of terrible suffering has been supplied us by a Bourke (N.S.W.J correspondent, who writes :— - The report I to-day send you will serve to show what a man may endure in these sterile regions. I have had many cases of hardship to record, but this case of Mr W. B. Bradley's, of the firm of Cobb and Co., is certainly one of the most fearful I have ever known. Men have wrestled with the terrible agony and died, but since I have been on the river, no one has gone through as much and lived to relate fie event. I shall nothing extenuate or set down, but as nearly as possible tell the tale as I have gleaned it from the pufferer himself. He says: — il I started from Yanda, on the Darling, about the 9th of April last, with a buggy and tw« horses, for Gidyagabambo, back country belonging to us south of the Darling, a distance of eighty miles without water. I had homes I depended on, but after going thirty miles through the bush one was knocked up, and I had to camp. When I started I had only two bottles of water, which were now consumed. This camp I considered about thirty miles south of Toorale ; I say south, but having no compass cannot be certain. I started next morning, one horse being still very well, and went seven miles. I believed myself too much to the east ; changed my course due south, or what I supposed south, and travelled between forty and fifty miles, and found myself among mountains. These mountains or high ridges running in all sorts of forms and directions, caused me to admit that I was in unknown country, and no water. The day had been very warm, and a painful sensation in the throat and tongue was felt; the horses were completely done ; here I camped. By daybreak I was after the horses, and found they, had left mo in the night ; found their tracks, and with much toil (for I had eaten nothing since I started, in fact, hunger I never felt) followed them for ten miles in a N.W. direction . About ten o'clock I came up to my best horse, the other nowhere to be seen ; and being in a fainting state from thirst, opened with my knife the neck vein, and drank more than a quart of blood. This horrible draught gave me much relief, but it was voided almost as soon as taken. I here rested, being quite exhausted, my poor horse never leaving me ; in fact, whenever I lay down, which I did towards the end of the journey every mile or so, he would stop, come back, and neigh. When I again started, I led him N.W., the course he was going when I recovered him; this point I felt sure was the nearest to the river. About three o'clock I found a kurragong tree, and as well as I was able — for my knees trembled, and my arms felt powerless— stripped away some of its bark, which I chewed, and found the sweet moisture of much benefit in clearing my throat and tongue ; and I feel con-? vinced should anyone be in a like strait and have strength to procure plenty of this bark, it would preserve life, for a day

or two. At four p.m., I again drank blood with exactly the same result ; my poor horse, Sydney, a TAS, was now literally staggering. All day it had been vory hot, but at night it became quite cool, and I resolved to long-hobble my horse and follow him ; the reason of my hobbling him waa that, weak as he was, he could outwalk we, and even then I had to follow the sound of the chains. After going about six miles thus, he started into a reeling canter and stopped in a dry creek called Mulranya ; here I knew where I was, and followed him <o Marrandina and lay down ; when I again started, the horse was gone. Ten miles hid now to be got over, which took me alout seven hours, when I reached one of my own tanks at Nulltrania, fifteen miles from the Darling, where I had sheep. The horse, Sydney, likewise found the tank, drank, rolled, aud died ; the other horse got in the next day, and plunging headlong into the water, was drowned."