MISCELLANEOUS.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 4012, 31 May 1884, Page 5 (Supplement)

MISCELLANEOUS.

A BUSH FIRE,

(Bγ "Gallery. , ')

I confess to a great contempt for that civilizer and leveller—the iron horse. To the man who is in a hurry, to whom time is money, and who works according to the high pressure of the nge, it may have charms, for me it has none. The good old coaching days wereihe clays of enjoymont. On tlio top of a coach there is more sociality than can be obtained ir. a first-clnss carriage hitched on to an engine guaranteed able to travel seventy-five miles an hour. Ask any ono who lias done that glorious coaching journey from Hobart to Launeoston, which he prefers, Iron Horse or King Cobb, and youranswer will be given without a moment's hesitation. In the same way the man who has travelled from Ballarat to Melbourne by coach has no love for the rapid railway journey. To do the one you get up early and spend your day at it, while the other is only a three hours some odd minutes' ride, but if time be no object comparisons between the two journeys there can bo none. I will, however, admit that when ono thinks of a six or seven hundred miles' journey by coach it may be another matter. I often thought a conch journey to Central Australia would be delightful, but somehow or another 1

never had the pluck to undertake it, as there were only two ways of doing it— horseback

or coach. Holding such views it is notto be wondered at, when I got a two days' holiday, I decided on viewing a part of Victoria I had never seen on the south coast, and the fact that the journey had to be done by coach over a rough and ragged track did not at all dampen my spirits. Early one Friday morning 1 started from Bonrke-streot on the top of a coach—l often wonder box seats are not rushed iv coaches where the aprings are of leather, as they are far more comfortable than riding inside, and also enable one to see the country better and to greater advantage

—bound for Grantville. I had as much idea of where the place was and the distance as if I had been a new chum. A map showed me the one, and a guide-book gave the other as 35 miles, and with that accuracy for which such books are famous I learned that the distance was in reaiity G9 miles. Away we bowled at ten miles an hour through the suburbs of Melbourne, passed Caulfield. The racecourse was not much in those days,—only five years ago last February—and land, whicli was then selling by the acre, is now sold by the foot. At Oak-

Leigh we had our first halt, ten miles from Melbourne, and ono wondered how anything could ever bo made to grow on such wretched soil. Fiom thence to Dandenong the

track was smooth as a billiard table. Another wait at Dandenong—it is astonishing

how much whiskey coach drivers can stow beneath their waistcoats in the early morn-

:ing hours —and once more we changed horses, and sped on to Cranbourne, which twas just half way. So far our road had ;been good, we had travelled in a land of •civilization; but after leaving that gay place wo diverged, the road was a newly made one, metal there was none, holes everywhoi'e, and we fast neared the famous swamp Kooweerup, where men were trying to drain it, and as the thing is still going on the job looks as good as being a member of a Continuous Ministry. We were now in a country, Gippsland, of which wo were only touching the outskirts, and whicli was ten years ago unknown. Blacks

had never lived in it, and as the aboriginal proverb says, " where a blackraan cannot live the white man should not go," it seemed as if the early settlers were flying in the face of fate. Hero the travel-

ling slackened down to something like three to four miles an hour, with an occasional request to those inside the coach to get down and walk. The giants of the forest were beforo us, towering up as it were to heaven, straight stemmed ; with no foliage till you reached a height of 150 to 200 feet. They were too thick to allow of their spreading out branches lower down, and so they had shot ahead. The giants were such that if I

had not myself seen them I would hare doubted their existence, but we wero now skirting the edge of the Poowong forest, which some day will be a glorious country of smiling fields and neat farmhouses, but at

the dato of which I write was simply a collection of ancient trees, some of them four hundred feet high, many of them thirty feet in circumference at four feet from tho ground, and an occasional one sixty feet in girth. I had read of euch trees, but here I was in their presence, and man's presence was denoted by tho burning and felling of the giants which could be seen here and

there. Smoke was everywhere, and gradually my face beean to darken with the soot

that literally filled the air. On we kept on our journey, ever and anon crossing little inlets, nothing more than branches of the sea, up which little schooners sailed with supplies to the settlers while the tide was in, and when it went out the schooners were stranded, the cargo thrown overboard and carted away before the incoming tide onco more floated the little crafts. On we went to Tooraddin, and here we were in a country where the rainfall probably averages sixty incliee per annum, but water was scarce, and only a little drop was vouchsafed in which to wash before sitting down to dinner. I

have often thought with remorse of the part that hotel towel played in bringing back my face to its pristine color-the part was engraved on the towel in good black and white, in which the latter color was not conspicuous. The remainder of tho journey was through similar country till wo neared Q-rantville ; when the heavy black or chocolate soil was varied by heavy sand, and in the middle of a little clearing stood a neat, clean, and comfortable hotel, where for

the night I was to put up. I looked around at my surroundings, and I found myself in different circumstances to any I

had ever before been in. Trees were at the front., at the right, and at tho left, any ono of which falling -would have smashed up tho whole clearing, while at the back was the ocean, a little way ofE French Island, and from tho smoke it wns evident it was all ablaze. That night the surveyor who had been at work on the island came over in a boat to the hotel; he was afraid to sleep on

the island. After tea and a smoke a further look around showed me that the mainland was on fire in all directions. I walked down the jetty, which ran out into the sea nearly

half a mile so'as to get into deep water, to allow schooners to load the timber whioh was sent from two mills seven lnilee away, and from which tramways wore constructed to the coast. Sitting'on the' end of that jetty, moonlight there was none, what a glorious viow one had. It seemed as if every tree had a,lamp suspended half way up it, and the illumination- was,; grand. French Island -was a mass of flames, at times lurid, and then now and again almost hidden in a dense vapor of smoke. I smoked th,e calumet of peace, but did not feel altogether happy. I had camped in many a strange placo before, but I had never gone to bed with fires on every side of me. I found that the arrival of two strangers had upset the household.-- We could not both have the best bedroom, so we were to be mates for the night, and an additional bed was brought into the reom. I occupied one, the surveyor, the other.. We turned in early r he with a cigar between bis lips' which he told me;was his usual method of going to sleep, dropping off while smoking. I had never tried that experiment, and I thought I would have given something handsome if he would not have tried it that night. The fresh air had soon • an effect. I fell off to-sleep, and though I dreamt of the;devouring element, on the whole I slept: the sleep of the just. In the morning, at the edge of his bed ? was the stump of the cigar, which the 6moker had dropped from his lips

when he fell off to sleep. A look around showed that the fires had in no way abated during the night, but on the contrary had increased, and though the illumination was not so striking to the eye, as it had been the previous night, it was quite evident that that was due to the rays of the sun. In the distance wero largo masses of smoke, which showed that tho misletoe scrub was on fire. Wherever the eyo could reach was smoke or vivid fire. I confess I did not take to the conch for the return trip very kindly, and I don't suppose would have taken to it at all had it not been that to stay whero I was seemed (o me us bad as to proceed. We started, and this time I was the only passenger, and slowly we prococded on our journey. Sscarcely had wo been an hour started when iC seomed as if the fires were travelling both with and against the wind. All along the cleared track stood the stumps of trees, and everywhere they wero on fire. Here coachey gave me the reassuring news that he should not have started if he had thought it was like that, but to turn back was impossible. On we must go, the

rough scrub fences, dog-leg, and log principally, with no cleared ground around them, were but feeding the flames and aiding the scrub. In front there was a wall of fire, behind the same, and now for some miles our track lay through a burning bush. Never shall I forget one mile of that road. We had eased tho horses—l say we, for I was driving by turns —so as to hare something in hand in case of need, and well that stood, for presently we came to a part of the road which was only a quarter of a chain wide, scrub on either hind, and that in (lames. The giants of the forest, many of them rung, many of them hollow inside, were in flames, at times high up and on the ground. As we came to this lane conchoy suggested I should drive, but I shook my head, and bent it to tho fiercest hot wind ever I felt, a hot wind not of tlie sun's

creating, but of bush fires

I simply asked

the longth of the lane, and suggested that he should put the horses at their best pace ; it was done, and for a mile through two living

walls of flame we drove. It must have maddened the horses tho intenso heat. With hoad bont I kept feeling my beard to see it was not burnt of my face, and through the walls wo dashed. Animals flying in all directions were trying to escape with their lives. Hares, rabbits, kangaroos, and

here and there a stray sheep, wero endeavor

ing to get through that fearful fire, and as we pursued our way we saw that many in their frantic efforts to escape had got burned up, while one kangaroo had either been killed or burnt by a falling burning tree. I

have been in a coach when the pace was close on twenty miles an hour, and I have done a mile in something over an hour, but I never seemed to go slower than through

that lane, while all the time as I looked at the horses, bravely doing their best unconscious of the danger, I know that we were not only making good time, but for such a road were making a wonderful pace. At last we were out of it, and on a broad track, and though danger was not past, as the country in front was one mass of flames, we eased the horses, and had a look round to view the " jaws of death " from which we

had come. And what a sight it was, Thcro seemed to be no road, it looked as if all be- u hind us was one huge fire, and to this day it. remains as a mystery' how >ye ever cum out of it. But our troubles were not ended. As we went on it seemed as if all the country round us were in flames, tho grass was everywhere alight, where thoro was scrub

that also was on fire, and every other tree seemed to be burning. After a little we came to a small clearing where a selector had sofctled himself and had built his house. Up again that house he had a ladder, and his children kept handing him up buckets of water, which as fast as he got them he was

throwing on the roof, to prevent the place being burnt; about him. The story may as well end here. Our whole journey was

through a dense smoke, but the worst had been passed, and we wore close on the suburbs of Melbourne before the flames were left behind, and even when we drew up in Bourke-street that evening the atmosphere was obscured by the smoke through which wo had passed. I know not the date, but at Colac in the West of Victoria, a similar fire had raged, and a selector and his family were burned to death. On the route through which we had passed some had saved their lives by secreting themselves in their wells.