MYSTERIOUS OCCURRENCE.

Westport Times, Volume III, Issue 461, 4 February 1869, Page 2

MYSTERIOUS OCCURRENCE.

SUPPOSED POISONING BY TUTU. Information was received at the Police Camp on Tuesday of tho discovery of a man in an insane state some distance up the Buller, and of another man, his mate, having died in the bush from the effects of eating the poisonous berries of the tutu plant. The account given was that one man had arrived at the Ohika ferry in a state of mania, and that, when he recovered his sanity, he was able to relate the worse fate of his companion. Constable Price was at once despatched up the river, and the body of the man, which in the interval had been searched for and found, was brought to AVestport last evening. An inquest will be held this forenoon in the Occidental Hotel. The following narrative of the circumstances, so far as they are known, are furnished to us by a correspondent, who wrote previous to the discovery of the body : On Saturday morning the ferry-man at the Ohika River, on the Buller road, observed a man in a most frantic state on the opposite side of the river. The ferryman, Moore, made all haste to get him over to the house, when it was found that he was in a state of the most abject insanity. After a good feed and resting for an|hour, bis recollection to some extent returned. He could then remember that, four days before, he left Charleston iu company with another man whom he called " Little Tommy;" that they arrived at Packers' Point by coach, and proceeded up the road towards the Lyell; that they called at the Junction Hotel and had each a glass of ale; and then proceeded on their journey. He

remembered tvalking some miles when they Bat down to rest in a place where there was an abundance of tutu, the berries of which they ate freely, as " ITommy " said they were good for food. After eating these berries the poor fellow could remember nothing beyond walking on for some miles. Both of them falling very sick, they put up their tent, when "Tommy" was seized with violent fits. He was lying on his back and frothing at the mouth. The other became alarmed, and in his delirium rushed off for assistance, and for three days and nights was rushing through the bush perfectly mad until Saturday morning when he happened to arrive at the ferry. Ou Sunday a party left the accommodation house at the ferry and searched the bush for the tent and missing man, but without success, and on Monday another party, accompanied by the sick man, who was then much better, started off in search. There can be but little hope of finding " Tommy" alive, but every effort is being made to find him and the tent. It is feared that they must have pitched it some distance off the road, as several travellers arrived at the Ohika, both up and down, none of whom had seen a tent on the road. The man who arrived at the Ohika was in a deplorable state. He was perfectly mad, without a hat, his face scratched and bruised all over, and his tongue swollen and covered with sores, presenting a dreadful spectacle. "When it is taken into account that he was wandering for three days without food, he was not so exhausted as might have been expected, but he was in such a state that if he had lain down it is very likely that he would never have risen again. The body, we understand, was found in a creek, with the head resting on a boulder. It is now very much decomposed.