A Wonderful Escape.

Manawatu Herald, 25 April 1893, Page 3

A Wonderful Escape.

Dr Lamb writing from the New Hebrides gives the following account of the wonderful escape of a sailor from drowning : — We were startled yesfcorday to see two men coming up the walk from the shore. One of pWhern Francois, who was lost with his ketch and crew in the hurricane. Truth is stranger than fiction. He had been two or three days in the sea, and had been washed about and had swum sixty-three miles. After leaving the sinking vessel he and two others struck out for Ambrym, which they nearly reached, when the tide turned and carried them away. Then they swam towards Malikula, and got just close to shore-^three hundred yards off— and again the tide swept them awfty. His back was raw from nav>e to thighs and his eyes swollen and" blinded with salt water and tropical sun. Again they neared Ambrym and were swept on to Paama, and when they got on to the reef and thence to the beach none of them could rise out of the water for a. considerable time. He is a little muscular man, as sturdy as a bullock, yet when he met us yesterday he was almost crying, such a change 1 He lost his vessel in trying to save a smaller craft, and i nearly lost his life by giving his support — the hateh — to one of his sinking companions, a native. He had breakfast with its, and pushed on to his home at Banon to surprise his younger brother. Truly he is as one raised from the dead,