Wonderful Heroism.

Manawatu Herald, 31 January 1899, Page 3

Wonderful Heroism.

■"■■»■■ ■ In the Wide World Magazine for November Mr A. Sarathkumar Ghosh tells some snake stories. We sometimes hear thrilling accounts, he says of men being bitten in the jungle, far from elaborate assistance, and of chopping off the injured limb with a sword, in frantic heroism ; but one at least is authentic within the writer's knowledge. The Eastern Bengal Railway runs due north from Calcutta and after a couple of junctions reaches Darjeeling. One dark and dismal night, when the wind was howling and the rain just turning to a drizzle after a terrific tropical downpour, the engine-driver of a train — who by the way, was an Englishman, as in fact they mostly are on the Indian railways — was helping the stoker to shovel some coal from the shed to the tender, when suddenly he felt a sharp pain on his finger. On a light being brought, a huge cobra was revealed coiled up on the top of the coals with its head erect and its hood expanded. Driven to that refuge from the rain it had launched forth at the driver when he had reached for the coal. What was he to do in that howling wilderness ? There was no time to lose; a few seconds more and the poison would mount up beyond his reach. He thought of cutting the arm —but with what? He had no instrument. True, he might lay it on the line and ask the stoker to drive the train over it. But what if the arm still dangled by a line of flesh, thin, but yet enough to communicate the poison ? And how to stop the subseqnent flow of blood? These thoughts flashed through his mind faster than it takes to write them. Suddenly, clenching his teeth in frantic determination, he jumped on to the engine, flung the furnace open, and thrust his arm into the fire. There, like a modern Scsevola, he held it till it was burnt down to the elbow ; then he fainted. The stoker took the train fo the next station, where the injured man was treated temporarily, and afterwards brought down to Calcutta, where he finally recovered.