Lost in the Bush.

Manawatu Standard, Volume X, Issue 44, 20 July 1885, Page 4

Lost m the Bush.

'-. Scarcely anything more wonderful, and we may ;add more touching, Ijan ever been recorded m history than a narrative which has "just appeared m the Australian papers concerning the adventures of Clara Crosbiej a little girl twelve-years of age, Jwho was lost m the bush near Lilydale, m the midst of a wild, lonely country .intersected, by ieniN, who had \ nothing to eat for' twenty long days; and t yet was at length, rescued alive, and at latest account was iiv a lair way towards i*ecovery. After her J disappearance seai;ch ; gai;(ie3 scoured ; the country^ but not a tvace could be founti of the little wnmlerer, and. sorrowfully at length she. .had, to. .be given. xl\\ as lost. ; On the twentieth day after heif disappearance, a couple of friend?, started t|P look for a horse that;had~ strayed oh 1 the ranges, and a« tl;ey were busy in 'conversation t"ey r were suddenly startled, by a tiny little ' coney,— - like a. young blackbird's whistle,, as they described it afterwards. . In a very few momenta they ca.ughc sigjit of the poor child whose; life had been so miraculously pre-. served, to that hour.. A wan emaciated little figure tottered towards them man ulster, without shoes or stockings on but. quite sensible., She said: "I want to go home to my mother. I've been lost three weeks/ Never became two mortal men more excited and moved than were the Australians at ilris spectacle* and neycr worked, two men with more energy, with their hearts more thoroughly m their work, than these, did to get their little charge into a place of safety, where i-hipp wants could be attended to. tier, story when it came to be told, sounded quite like a romance. .After she was lost, .she found the hollow trunk of a tree near a stream. During the 'awful' period efye was away from home, intense frosts and soaking rains prevailed, and still she wa? providentiallykept alive. To get as much warmth as possible and to keep oiit the cold, she hung her ; apron across tiie opening m the trunk of the tree: H§r corset was laid on the ground to keep the cold from striking through to her body. Her petticoat she wraped round her feet, anil hh ulster she wore constantly after the fashion of a blanket. In this position she srtems to" have passed most of her time, occasionally going to the stream to get a drink. The last two days she was even too weak to do this. ," Food she had none. She once tried to chew some bark, but found it too bitter and spat it oul. She said to one enquirer : — \ " ' . "I used to sleep a lot, and as soon as it was night it was day, and when it was day it was night quick again. On moonlight niajhts I heard people firing guns, and I heard them knocking; making a f'exce; but when 1 cooeyed they did not hear me. I used to sing at first, and pray that someone would come for me. I felt a pain the day after I was lost, hut after that f only got weak, and the day before I was found I could not go to. the creek for drink." The morning; Mr Curwan came a black spider came over my •face and woke -in*'. It fell on my shoulder, and I took off, and said, I wduld:npt be cruel enough to kill it, and threw it outside the tree. Then I heard people talking, but before I got up they went away, f went as far us I conld and cooeyed, "ami they came back to me." We do not envy the man or woman who can read this simple little narrative unmove-1. But we do envy those two AusLr.tliiins — Messrs Smith ami Curwaii— whose happiness it wasto stumble across this trustful,[innocent litt'e 'mai'-li n, and to real;oro her to the aim • of ii 'mother. who had been . mourning her as dead,-* k Tim;iru, Herald, ".. |