IN INCIDENT OF THE FLOODS.

Temuka Leader, Issue 255, 13 April 1880, Page 2

IN INCIDENT OF THE FLOODS.

: IVu RTY-TWO rtoRUS ON A tiOft IN Maxawatit .River. -I^^, Two men engaged in tie .. B ! ock. near Taboraito, is ■■at during ink-iiood nn ex; crh-nce of daug-r and suspense such ns fa!is to tew men who live to tell the tale. The men, whose ' ?! mes wo !'•oliove are Barnes nnd Kemp, ! wore camped on a strip of land in : the i bed of the Manawatn. On Saturday night the flood witters crime down the river, tilling a h>w stretch between the camping-ground nnd the main land, and leaving the camp on an island, with a surging torrent, all around. Soon the water invaded the wham,'and awoke its occupants, who quickly scrambled out and got on the trunk of a large tree, which at I caught by the fronts, and had become stationary, Just as they spcculating on the chances of the tree floating away, Kemp remembered that he had’left aLi note in the where, and In l went bade and secure! the money, remarking that <! if. would pay expenscG w!i< v n they boated to Ponton.” Kemp is an old bushman, and though he fully ex-meted .the tree to be ‘onsened by the force of the current, he - expressed lus confidence in being able to <{ keep on to/’ until it got through the Gorge. Fie could have secured his own safety by swimming to the mainland, and o once left and was half way across, bat he su-MenfV remember,d that Barnes con’d not swim and returned to the log. Failing, this after repeated attempts, thev abandoned that method of rescue, .and mad • a raft, but the wood was so wet that it sank.- ■ They then actual'y cut dc wn a tree and hollowed it out li e a Maori canon. Night full before their task was finished, arid it was ✓getting towards moon of the second day before the emme was floated, end the men taken from the log after they had been there thirty-two hours. They were chi;lt'd and utterly exhausted, as might, be expected, but they did not seem to, have otherwise puttered from tn/r mug exposure to wind, Hood, and ram, in, the afternoon the canoe was used by me of the party to cross to Tahorruto for.-.. ■■ provisions, and be there lold the tale; as wo have narrated it. The story seems a ‘ tall ” one, but tiio main facts; appear to have bee?) correctly stated.