Long-Distance Riding in Australia.

Manawatu Herald, 26 January 1893, Page 2

Long-Distance Riding in Australia.

Apropos of the continental road race, a correspondent of the " South Australian Register " of October 18 writes :— Trooper Power, in Feb., 1880, undertook an arduous journey across most inhospitable country in pursuit of a hofse-stealer named John Smith. This zealous officer travelled 76G miles in twenty-six days without a change of horses one stage of eighty miles without water, and the country was in such a bad state for 130 miles that' his two horsoa never had a bite of feed. Be did his duty with discretion and judgement aud consideration, for his horses. Look what endurance Power must have had -thirty iniies a day on worn out horses, long dry stages, and bad water to drink I Then again, we have Trooper Wiltshire, wiv) rode eighty five miles in twenty hours on the one horse There are people now in Central Australia who remoraber the occasion ; it was May 28th, 1887, two days after the natives had stuck upErldunda Station. The same trooper travelled 200 miles in 4 days when he heard that his comrade, P. T. Shirley, had dieduof thirst. He did not have macadamised roads and plenty: of, frosh water like the Berlin and Vienna men ; but he had a broiling ,sun ijo endure, sand hills to climb, mulga scrub to penetrate; and was corn-, pelled to take dead animals out of native wells before he could use the water. Wonderful, feats on horseback are done in the bush of Australia that are never recorded.