LOST IN THE BUSH.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume III, Issue 179, 17 June 1864, Page 3

LOST IN THE BUSH.

(From the A. Z. Herald). Our readers will remember that three wee':s ago last Sunday, a man named Brennan, formerly a Forest Banger, but then employed on the Great South road, near Martyn’s clearing, was lost when strolling with his companions. We are glad to say that the unfortunate man, after wandering without other food than nikau and berries for fifteen days, made his way across the country to the coast; and that, though his sufferings have been great, and that he is still much wasted, his health does not appear to be permanently injured. It appears that on the Sunday in question, Brennan and others were strolling about in the bush, and he, becoming detached from the remainder of the party, lost his way. A very diligent search was made for him, both by Mr. Martyn and his comrades, but, as we know, without success. Brennan had with him a gun, but unfortunately neither shot nor ball, and to his gun he was consequently unable to look as a source of food. The only use, indeed, it was to him during the first three days and nights, when, by the assistance of some powder and caps, he was enabled to kindle a fire. When the supply of these fell short, he left the gun against a tree as only a useless incumbrance. During the first three days the sun was not visible, and a heavv mist hamnncr all * «/ o o round prevented Brennan, although a good bush man, from making use of his knowledge, and we can understand that when the fourth day dawned on the unhappy man, judgment would be lost in the energy of desperation. It seems, however, that he fell across some cattle tracks very shortly afterwards, and as ho was one of the party of Forest Bangers who once penetrated the bush to Paparata, he was led into the belief that they would lead him to that place. At any rate he had no other choice than to follow them, which he did for days, until they brought him into a deep, rugged valley, such as he had never seen before in New Zealand, The ground

In the Suxks.—lt is by no moans impossible for one who is skilled in the art of being “ hurt,” or “ injured,” to imagine himself wronged by the whole world : all the people he knows have more or loss injured him, and, therefore, by the argument of analogy, he justly reasons that everybody lie docs not know —that is, the rest of the human species—only require an opportunity to act towards him in the same inhuman manner. Once persuaded of this, his position is impregnable indeed. Ho sits moodily by the fire at home—or rather in the house which society lias mockingly entitled Ills home; he moves moodily abroad, waving oil’ the street-beggars with a deprecating gesture, as though lie would say: —“You make a mistake, my good sir or madam ; you seek for sympathy of one who is far more wretched than yourself. You have friends, you have faithful associates, who take their part in your mournful ditties, as bass or tenor ; I have no friends, or those I have are all base.” The feeling of utter carelessness, or, in other words, the noble philosophy which is experienced by a gentleman under these circumstances, can only be understood by those who have proved it it is quite as complete as that indifference to mundane matters which overtakes a person attacked by sea-sickness. “ What docs it matter,” reflects he, “if I am run over by an omnibus, or even by a Pickford’s van ? Who will grieve when my mangled remains are taken back in a couple of cabs to the hearth which I have just quitted? If I fell down and broke both my legs, which is likely enough to happen anybody this frosty weather, but especially to me, who would tend my couch in a manner that would be gratifying to my susceptible disposition. lam sure I should be very sorry to trouble any of my relatives to do so ; I would not put myself under an obligation to them for worlds. Why do I say ‘ for worlds,’ as though they were any temptation P I trust that the theory of there being ‘more worlds than one’ is quite incorrect, if the other worlds are anything like this world. lam not speaking of the inhabitants only —whose behaviour towards me I can never forget—but of the physical appearance of the universe. It seems to me very far from beautiful. The sky is more like ink starch. I should not be surprised, far less annoyed, if there were to be a total and permanent eclipse of the sun. Why not? I see nothing at all worth looking at. Perhaps there is going to be an earthquake. So much the better. Let us all be buried together (although I am sure I do not want anybody’s company). Then there will be nobody left to pretend to be sorry forme. Nobody cares for me, and, for my part, I cordially reciprocate the compliment.” If you have never been in a frame of mind of this sort, my friend, you have never known what it is to be thoroughly “In the sulks.”— Chambers's Journal.

An Incompaeable Bulb. —No bull can excel this of Cobbett’s. In one of bis “rural rides” h© says : —“ I saw no corn standing in ricks ; a thing I never saw before, and would not have believed it, had I not seen it.”

An Englishman, boasting of the superiority of the horses in his country, mentioned that the celebrated Eclipse had run a mile in a minute. “My good fellow.” exclaimed an American present, that is rather less than the average rate of our ordinary roadsters. I live at my country seat, near Philadelphia, and when I ride in a hurry to the town of a morning, my own shadow can’t keep up with me, but generally comes into the store to find me from a minute to a minute and a bnlf after my arrival. One morning the beast was restess, and I rode as hard as 1 possibly could several times round a large factory, just to take the old Harry out of him. Well, sir, he went so fast that the whole time I saw my back directly before me, and was twice in danger of riding over myself. Englishmen and Scotsmen. —When we speak of “ Englishmen,” we include the whole inhabitants of our islands, and, with some modification, what w'e have said is even peculiarly applicable to Scotchmen ; for many members of the capital and of the provincial towns of England have no definite connexion with any rural district-, but in Scotland, all of us without exception are “of some country. Even the tradesmen who work in a hereditary shop in Edinburgh, has a bond of kindred in some farm or rural village, where his children go to spend the holidays ; and Donald M’ Alpine, who sells whisky in a cellar of the Gallogate of Glasgow, has his memory stored with the stories of his native glen in the far west, and perhaps, some notion of Ins own gentility, as the laird’s far-awa’ kinsman. To that glen his affections turn. ITo may never get there : ho is unfit for its life. But in feeling and imagination he is still the Highlander.— The Country Life of England, in the Earth British Be view. The Yankee in London. —The snug coach the varmint coachy, the dapper ponies, the smooth roads—oh! you might drive a sledge drawn by crocodiles and never know you touched the ground Breakfast at Liverpool, and the next morning, coffee and eggs, and Charing Cross before vour delighted eyes! Where shall I begin ? What shall I describe ? The row is just as if you’d pitchforked the contents of every city in the world slap into the middle of London, and left them to scramble out as they could. Everyone seems running, driving, or galloping for "life. Never saw such a hurry-scurry in all my days. Verily this is the spot for the peasant’s toe to gall the courtier’s heel. Talk of republics ! See the lark here; and tell mo how much that jarvey, with his old tanyard horse, his farthing pipe, and ginblotched face, cares for my Lord Duke’s carriage there, with as much silver on the wheels, panels, and harness as would buy our President’s household. 1 want to tell you everything, and I t hink if I don’t lose my senses in the hubbub and noise 1 stand a pretty good chance of spinning a precious long yarn. Event follows event here, much like the cracking of guns at a review—the sound of the last drives the former out of the mind. No one person or thing seems of any importance in mighty Babel. An atrocious murder may for a moment make the Cockneys stare, the newspapers sell, and give Jack Ketch an hour’s work—but it is only like throwing a stone in the Atlantic—a little ripple on a mighty sea, and the great expanse ofheaving waters rolls on its eternal course unmindful us'the dead. However, though London may be said to bo the central system'of civilization and the focus into which are collected all the scattered habits, manners, customs, costumes, languages, laws, religions, and people of the earth, still its aboriginal inhabitants, the unadulterated Cockneys, arc a race sui generis, and as distinct as a jackdaw would be among doves. On this account I should describe them. From their cradle they have different feelings, educations, habits, and manners, to the rest of Englishmen, and especially from those who resort from the provinces to this mart of wealth. By the latter is achieved whatever of that which is noble in their authors, poets, painters, orators, lawyers, senators, soldiers, sailors, and merchants. It, is by the constant effusion of old English blood from the remote districts, that (he valour, resolution, courage, determination, and energy of the British character are maintained in this mighty sink of gaiety and voluptuousness. The genuine Cockney race, as I have observed, are distinct beings. They become the servants, clerks, and slaves of others; they arc the hounds, as it were, to hunt down the game which they possess neither skill to find nor courage to start. It is your bold and daring Northlander whose gigantic mind conceives, and whoso daring hand propels and executes those mighty undertakings, those Titanic works like the Manchester and Liverpool Kailway, that have rendered British enterprise unapproachable among all the nations of the earth. Your Cockney is the jackal that goes in packs by the lion’s side to run down his prey. Indeed, they are a very miserable race of men, and yet the most presumptuous on the face of the earth. In themselves they conceive the British glory to he centred ; and there is not a tailor's apprentice in the city that does not fancy himself nightly representing, at the , the ■, or some other of his tavern haunts, the honour and renown of England’s thousand years of unsullied fame. In appearance, like the inhabitants of all large and overgrown cities, the Cockneys are small, not squat, like the Esquimaux or Hottentots, but sallow, sickly, slim, with exceedingly sharp, anxious countenances, and much of the fox-like visage of their Celtic ancestors. In dress, being mostly tailors, drapers, and merchants’ clerks, they are smart and rather fine. At present they affect neatness, and are, as they designate it, quiet in their style. A black frock coat, a buff waistcoat, parti-coloured pantaloons, made to fit execrably bad legs, large boots, with as much behind as before the ankle, small hats, hair cut as close as a pig’s back, and a silk umbrella, generally distinguish a thorough-bred Cockney. His physiognomy is quite peculiar—low forehead, ferrety eye, pursed-up mouth, and exceedingly carefully-trim-med whiskers, afford one of the strangest mixtures of finikin meanness and assumptive gentility that ever was seen.—“ The Editor's Table," in the Knickerbocker.