LOST IN THE BUSH.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 9568, 14 August 1909, Page 3

LOST IN THE BUSH.

!A PATHETIC STuRY. HARDSHIPS 1H THE BACKBI.OCKS. A pathetic story of the hardships and trials of back blo.dc life it contained in the following extracts from a letter received by a G iabocrne resident fr<>m onu of the occupiers o<: bush sections inland, not far from Opotiki, says the Gisborne correspondent of the Auculand "Herald":—"l sjppos-3 you have heard by this time about the man being lost up here. It is the saddest thing I have ever had anything to do with. La:-t Saturday fortnight he went ouc pig-hunting across the river, and got one pig. It was getting late then, s-> he left th2 pig and his rifle,-and tried ot get home before dan<, but could not, so he spent the night in the bush, and when it got light he went back to get the pig and rifle, but couldn't find them. He came on home on the Monday morning, and after breakfast went out again to try and get his rifle and pig, and nothing has been heard or seen of him since. "On Monday afternoon it came up very misty, and commenced raining, and rained all night and all day on Tuesday, and Tuesday night was one of the worst nights I have known, with heavy rain and wind. Of course, we had no idea that anyone was out in all that, till Wednesday morning. I had just got out of Led and got the fire going, when 1 heard a gentle knock at the door, and there was Mrs Crosswell standing shivering at the door and unable to speak. I knew that something pretty serious had happened, so I asked her inside, I and she managed to get out that hre husband had gone out on the Monday and had not returned. She had tried to get up to our whare on Tuesday to tell us about it, but couldn't manage the children. She started carrying the daby, and tried to get her second eldest one to walk alongside of her, but the poor little thing got so wet that s=he had to carry them both home again.

"Her husband rode across the river when he went away, and left his hors3 tied up to a tree on the o htr side, and she told ma that she coulrl see the water riisng over the poor brute's back on Tuesday night, and when she went down to the bank it .would keep neighing. "I went up the road to give the news to the natives, an i Mrs Crosswell went back to look after the children. She said she could get back all right. When we got across tlie bridge further up the river we could not get across the big creek, it was bank-to-bank, so the roadmen started to make a rope bridge across it. I went up to see how Mrs Crosswell was. She was in a terrible state, crying, and all the children were. crying too. I did not line t) leave* her, in case she might go cut of her mind, a3 she did not know vWiat she was doing. Then she took me down to the river to show me where th<: horse was tied, The hor*e was alive, bul huklng Very iV/ucli knocked about. In the meantime they had got over the big creek and called out to me to show them where George had gone ir;to tho bush. I put, them on the marks, an! suiJ I would bring them over some fo'jd, as they ki:ew they would r>ot get out till next day." After referring t« his own SX* perk'nte in the bush, the writer iioriciuileti *jy saying: ''l do hope they will rind him, but there is a very small chance."