TRAMP ACROSS AFRICA.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 121, 19 June 1909, Page 3

TRAMP ACROSS AFRICA.

CONVICT'S FLIGHT FROM JUSTICE. London, May 1. Joseph Creswick, the convict who escaped Iroin Rhodesia and tramped across Allien to the Congo Slate, was again brought upon Saturday at Bow-street and remanded for a week.

J lie strange story of his wanderings I is> described by Hie Standard. He was | found guilty of forgery a. year ago at | Buluwayo and sentenced to six years' penal s'ervitudc. As Salisbury, where he was to work out the .first part of the sentence, is 200 miles from Buluwayo, a night journey by rail wag necessitated. It was while the train was between Gwclo and Salisbury that Ureswick left the train. His guards were sleeping, satisfied with the knowledge that their prisoner wore leg irons, 'and i that with the stepping of the train they would ■wake—.hut Ureswick leapt from the moving train. A convenient boulder helped him to rid himself 01 the hampering irons—a task that took him the greater part of the day—and he made for Hartley. Living on mealies that he took from the growing crops in native plantations, he moved s'owly northward and westward. After days of wandering always' northward—he struck a mining camp, and, waiting his opportunity, stole a coat and pair of trousers, carefully hiding his convict garb. Then lie continued his journey. He was not as yet armed, and once"he came upon a lion that stood watching him as he passed, hi fulness' of time he came to the Zambesi, and crossed it many miles eastward of the Victoria Falls. Then he fell sick of fever, hut met a providential "friend," who helped him. Later he was to meet another friend, farther on the northward road, who persuaded him to go oil to Broken Hill Jliue. The map shows that Broken Hill is situated midway .between Lake Tanganyika and Victoria Falls, on the line of the Cape to Cairo jaiiway. Broken Hill offered no employment, and the two'tramped off to yet another mine, where they got no work,, tint five pounds'' worth of (provisions to help them on the road. A consultation followed, and it was decided to lake the road westward -the ''road" is a native track through the country and the \ tramp was continued. J The borders of Angola were chosen [ because the friend of the escaped man 1 had heard 'that men were wanted for I work on the Lobito Bay railway; so I day hy day the tramp went on, the men I now sleeping at a native village, now I sharing a blanket in the wilds, tilt the j mountains of Angolaland came in sight. At the'border Creswick hesitated. There j would be while men on the Angola line ; who would recognise him, and detection s'ecmed inevitable, so he left his friend to continue the march to Lobito, and himself struck north for the Congo border. He knew little or nothing about the Congo—and it is curious how very little is known concerning this vast territory by the average South African but there was a mine over the border, the "Congo Star" is was called, and thither he directed his feet. There was no chance for him there. The mine officials ! and workmen, with that eamaraderio ' which animates men who live in the waste places of the earth, helped him with provisions, and the journey was' resumed. Then of a sudden he came upon a large river, flowing rapidly westward. It could not be the Congo, by his reckoning, and was probably the Kasai, fo r he found steamboats making regular passages up and down the | river; and he secured a passage in re- : turn for his services'.

Sine days' steamer brought him to the Congo'and to Stanley Pool. Here, at Leopoldville, he found the 180 miles that separated him from the navagable portion of the river confronting him; but such a journey by the side of the 2000 miles of wandering -was nothing, and eventually tie reached Boma, obtained a passage on the Bruxellcsville, and in course of time came to Antwerp, thence to London—where a prosaic police officer awaited him.