A Terrible Experience.

Te Aroha News, Volume II, Issue 89, 14 February 1885, Page 4

A Terrible Experience.

We young engineers, had many good friends in Bradford, 10 miles away, and would often run down there to dinner other attraction, returning by a Ijggage train which started from Bradford to wend its weary way everywhere at the witching hour getting knocked about here and there, until its dismembered components would find their way io the uttermost ends of the earth. I never looked King Death so fully in the face as from that night luggage train. We had on our staff an architect, who designed the stations, lodges, &c. This architect lived at Bradford, and being a hospitable man, we dined with him frequently, returning as I have said, Now this long, lumbering luggage-train passed in its course within two or three hundred yards of the residences of most of us, whilst the station was much further away. The gradient was unfavourable, the train heavy, and it was an understood thing that the engino-driver wa3 not to stop to put us down, but slacken speed to some five or six miles an hour, when we might get out as best we could. On this occasion we had a carriage next the engine, and a long line of luggage trucks," say 40, 50, or 60, behind us. We arrived at the spot where I meant to descend. The train slackened s and I opened the carriage door. It was very dark. I could not see the ground, but I swung my right foot lightly as I hung on the carnage, my left hand on the door-handle, my left foot on the step, and looked earnestly down before jumping. I could not see, but I knew we were passing the proper place, and the rest urged me on ; so I jumped and pitched upon a raised heap of fresh ballast. The ballast yielded under me ; I slipped and fell rolling towards the train. Inside the carriage they shout and scream to the driver to stop the train, but the rat tie overpowers their voices and he does not bear them. If they had succeeded, they would have killed me with their kindness. But they failed, and I, of course, knew nothing about it. They decided to say no word at the station, wisely enough; of course, they knew I shouldnotwish the affair to be noised about if I were safe, and if, as they all felt sure was the case, I was cut to pieces, they could do nothing for me- So, when the train pulled uyj— for be sure no one else jumped down that night — they got lights from the lamp room and hurried, back. They found the crushed remains of my hat. They searched the line, the embankment foot, and the slope all over, and then they decided to go first to my room, to see if by any chance I had escaped. They did so, and entering found me seated before the fire, a churchwarden in my mouth, a glass of brandy and water on the table by my side, and my feet on the hob. contemplating a bright fire. The fact was that when I fell and rolled towards the train, expecting nothing but instant death, I tumbled into a hole eight inches deep, alongside of and indeed almost under the rail. My head fitted into this hole a3 the passing wheel brushed off my hat. My body and feet lay away from the train over the six-foot. Was I safe ? Tha first waggon did not touch me, although the rattle from the loosened rail joint as the wheels crossed it jarred me terribly, striking terror into my very soul. Clank clank, clank, the coupling chains passed over, and the leading wheels of the second waggon shook me again as they rolled over the loose joints. Then I began to feel safe ; but anon I remembered that a hanging coupling or a dragging tarpaulin would be fatal to me. I listened painfully for the jangle of a loose chain, but ere half-a-dozen waggons had passed I was unconscious of all but the great fact that the footboards were travelling three inches or less above my head, and travelling, oh, so slowly ! Would they never be past? A horrible desire to raise my head took possession of me. I felt that I must raise it, even though it were to be sliced in two the next instant in consequence of my doing so. I clenched my teeth and fists and tried to pray that I might have strength to resist the infernal temptation. Just when that temptation had become positively agonising in its strength, and when I was on the point of succumbing to it, I saw a red glare above my head. It was the "tail lamp," and the train had passed ! But not for me ; it was all going on just the same. More waggons, and still more, seemed to be rolling above me, and at last I lifted my head ! As I live to write this, I solemnly declare it was with a sort of wonder as to what it would all feel like soon where I was foing to. Nothing touched me, however, stared wildly around, and then fainted. Presently the air and the stillness revived me, and I knew that I was safe. But at first I felt almost disappointed. 1 know that had there been half a score more of carriages to that train my head would have gone up and gone off, for my presence of mind had left me. I could barely stagger home, when I drank a tumbler of brandy quite full at a draught ; it steadied me. The rest —the pipe, &c— were mere bravado. But I paid for it. That night, or morning rather, after I had gone to bed, and my rejoicing companions had left me, I started up shivering, rattling the very bed with my shaking, my teeth chattering, and my heart oeating in violent terror. It was long before I left that bed. — " Francis Grundy."

M, de Lesseps had a forerunner in more than mere theory in the Great Napoleon. In a letter to the Emperor Alexander of Russia, he says : " The Suez Canal, which, when completed, will connect the Indian Ocean with the Mediterranean, is already traced ; it is a work that could easily be accomplished within a short time." Strange destiny of fate that that canal should be constructed under the auspices of Napoleon's nephew and be opened by his nephew's wife aa Empress of the French. Stranger still, perhaps, that the control of that canal should pass to perfidious and. hated Albion,