A RACE WITH AN AVALANCHE.

Oamaru Mail, Volume I, Issue 104, 21 August 1876, Page 3

A RACE WITH AN AVALANCHE.

[t wast four years ago East winter. I was coming down with a train loaded with cattle. The weather had been had for weeks, and thy snow lay deep, but was melting off in the warm weather that had tasted nearly a week. The ground was saturated, and I noticed that things looked shaky ott the mountain. I was feeling my way carefully. thinking the track might spring, as the bed was wet and sloppy, | when jitat as f got round the point of this j ridge, I looked up, and it seemed to me j si.s.t the whole mountain above me had j broken to«*te. For hundreds of feet wide I the hillside was in motion and charging | dowri on me. I The side started 100 yards above the | track, and was coming right down 011 111 c like lightning. Hocks, trees, and snowdrifts plunged down the face of the mountain with: iii thundering roar, and seemed bent ott overwhelming us and burying us in the canon thousands »f feet below. I | was ne*ers<> close to death before,although j f have had my share of periEs on tfie roj«|. J For a moment. I was stupefied, the : danger was so great, and escape so hopv j less. but o-nly for a moment. I deter- f mined not to die without an effort, but j clapped on afl steam, while the brakes { were thrown off at the same time. You j can see for yourself that the grade is heavy here, and can believe that we made t'iist time. The engine seemed to know her danger, and to gather herself for an effort, she leaning, quivering, and snorting down the grade in the maddest nice I ever saw.

Down came the avataucEse like lightning directly upon us. throwing uj> ctoitds of ttying snow and splinters and rocks, snit aa ay Hew the old engine like a thing of life and beauty, as she was, dragging the cava like the wind down the grade after tier, abreast the slide. But it seemed to be doomed all in vain. The avaiaEictie came faster every moment. It was almost upon us. The rocks began to bound against the cars and over them, and the train was hidden in a cloud of snow. Ktit we were tEying through the air now- : the wheels* seemed never to touch thy rait, and just as I was giving up hop.* the engine rushed past the little point of land just back there where the iittie ravine comes down. This turned the current of the slide, so to speak, a little, and was our salvation.

The engine rushed past the point just as the slide reached the track, and a big pine, uprooted in t Iter edge of the avalanche, fell across the next car to the last one, and crushed it. The track was swept away tike a cobweb in a gale, the coupling of the cars broke, and the cars felt into- the ehassn left in the wake of the slide, and were carried down to the river a thousand yards below. What there is left of them lies there Vet. The jerk made the engine and train jump the track, but s!m> ki pt on tier feet, and got «»[f with a t'evv bruises. That I account one of the greatest dangers I evvi- met in my twenty rears of railroading. .>'«« ftvwtVw