FIVE DAYS AT THE BOTTOM OF A SHAFT.

Patea Mail, Volume II, Issue 150, 16 September 1876, Page 2

FIVE DAYS AT THE BOTTOM OF A SHAFT.

The Inglewood :correspondent of the “ Bendigo Advertiser” gives the following .account of the extraordinary sufferings ondured.hy a man named Joseph Walker, who .had been . missing from Inglewood for. several days, but turned up again on Tuesday, the 15th August'; —About midnight on Thursday the 10th, Walker, with J. Deslandes,! jnn., started out to the farm belonging to the father of the latter, where Walker had boon at work. On getting to The corner of Mr Wright’s fence at Old Inglewood, Walker, who was drank, refused to go any further, and, after many efforts on the part of young Deslandes to induce him'To proceed, he left him, talcing the precaution, however, of getting from Walker a bottle of gin he had with him. This was at 3 o’clock on Friday morning. Deslandes readied home at Hope Creek soon after, and by Saturday night all on the farm, not hearing of Walker’s arrival, became anxious, . Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday morning were spent in searching for the missing man, but no trace of him

could be found. At last, on Tuesday afternoon, Mrs Wright was astonished to see a wild-looking man, without hat, coat, or boots, with glaring eyes and haggard all remaining clothes and being torn to shreds, making towards her house. She did not know him at first, but soon found that it was no other than the missing' man, "Walker. He sank down exhausted in the place, and after- 4 wards related to several parsons the cause of his unaccountable absence. He stated that, being quite drank at the time Dcslandcs 'left him, he must have tried to have make his way to the farm, and in doing so crossed the crock in a shallow part, and then continued until ho walked down an old shaft 4Gft deep. He does not remember falling, hut found him self at the bottom, on becoming sober, little the worse for his fall, there being some mud into ■which he sank up to his knees. Observing that it was daylight, ho commenced shouting and cooeying, and kept it up until darkness set in. When daylight again showed ho resumed Cooeying, and then tried to climb,up, but there being no foot-holes he soon desisted. Next day (Sunday) he had got too weak to shout, mid made another' effort to liberate himself, trying to dig foot-holes with a piece of wood,- which soon proved too rotten, and being without a pockotknifo he gave it up in despair. On Monday the pangs of thirst became unbearable. He says he thinks that evening he must hate be'eri getting delirious, for he lay down thinking that Mrs Wright, one of fpc last persons he had seen, was making tel for him, and. he Was drinking, enjoying it with all kinds of delicacies, in the way of food. That night he had quite made up his mind that ho was to die there. On Tuesday morning he decided to make desperate efforts to get up the shaft, thinking, as he states, that ho might as well be killed in struggling for liberty as to quietly starve to death. He divested himself of coat, hat, and boots, commenced to wriggle himself up with elbows, shoulders and feet, chimneysweep ■ fashion, tearing and cutting lug flesh at every movement. In this way he climbed to within four feet of the surface, and then fell to the bottom again, cutting and bruising himself. After a short rest, he commenced the painful process again, and after much labor got his head level with the surface. Ho clutched a twig, which broke, and in order to save himself from another descent, threw himself forward, and clutched hold of a log. There he hung in frightful agony for a few minutes, and, finding his arms failing, raised himself up a little and partly hung by liis chin, and so, after resting his arms a little, managed with much difficulty and labor, to drag himself clear, once more standing on the surface, but a terrible object to look at. He went, towards Mrs Wright’s, half a mile off, and on the way lay down to drink at a pool, of which he says he swallowed about a gallon. He then reached Mrs Wright’s. She carefully fed him with light food, such as brandy, eggs, &c. Had poor Walker only shouted out on Tuesday, instead of climbing, he might have saved himself much intense suffering, as just as ho reached the surface a carter passed within 50 yards. The reason the man was not found by those searching for him appears to be owing to to his having crossed the creek, the searchers behoving that had he reached as far as the creek he had been drowned in it, therefore never troubling about the shafts on the other side, into one of which he had tumbled, after escaping thejdanger of the creek. It is fortunate indeed that Walker saved himself as he_ did, for the hole being in a lonely part of the bush, he would, in all probability, have died there, and in a few months the well-known caving-in of the old shafts , would have covered the body, and all trace been for ever lost. The duration of Walker’s imprisonment was five days and four nights, or about JQ6 hours, being without food all thaHanie, and nine hours previously. That a man could live for 115 lioxtrs without a bite of food, and make such exertions at last seems almost incredible. Walker is a native of Wapping, London, and was a schoolmate and intimate acquaintance of the real Arthur Orton.