Brigands Outwitted.

Manawatu Herald, Volume III, Issue III, 20 November 1890, Page 2

Brigands Outwitted.

■ * -*r Fenimore Cooper, in his stories of hair-breadth escapes from Indians, never hit upon a more extraordinary device for eluding pursuit than one which was related to President Caruot during a recent tour io Corsica. A French traveller, so the story went, ventured some years ago to pass through Corsica without an escort or any means of protection, and in crossing a particularly rough and craggy region found himself pursued by a band of brigands. As the traveller had some money on his person, and feared that besides being u robbed, he would be held in cajitswty for.ransom^ien if he were notiFput to death, he took to flight. -' i Knowinglittlo of the country, h« soon stumbled upon the border of a lake in the mountains. There was no path around it, it was impossible to swim across it, and the brigands weru behind him, though he was hidden from them as yet by the rocks. Whatever he did must be done in an instant. Necessity quickened his wits. He saw at once a way out of the difficulty, and availed himself of it. • He hastily cut with his knife one of the long, hollow reeds that grew on the shore of the lake. Then he stopped up his oars and nostrils with day from tKe wefr Tnar^^ib^the reed in his mouth and\ waded- out into deep water where he remained submerged, with upturned face, ju-t allowing ;he upper end of the reed to project above the surface. On came the brigands, following the traveller's track* to the waters edge. But what had become of him? Had he flown across? Certainly he could not have swam. There was no other way of escape, and the surface had by then stilled to a perfect calm. Th 9 brigands remained waiting on the shore for some time, but no eign of the traveller appeared. They concluded at last that he was a sorcerer, who had caused himself to vanish into the air. They then disappeared, and the Frenchman, who had been under water all this time, breathing through his tube, came out. He managed to keep under cover and make his way to Ajaccio, and there he declared that he had been under water four hours. It is possible that bis distress and alarm may have caused this period to appear many times longer than it r^ly was, but in confirmation of the main part of hid story the Frenchman brought with a water-soaked section of a hollow jreed.^^