LATEST NEWS.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume I, Issue 20, 27 March 1866, Page 3

LATEST NEWS.

OTAGO. A letter from a person who travelled from Otago to Bruce Bay overland by the Pyke track, gives a fearj ful account of that route. The journey occupied 103 days .' and their provisions having got exhausted, hey were nearly starved to death. When near the oast, one of the party got drowned while trying to ross one of the rivers on a raft. The deceased was b out 25 years of age, a native of Scotland, and his ame was George Mackay. He was well known in he Nevis district. The survivors placed their swags, blankets, boots, etc. on the raft previous to the accident, all of which were lost. The party subsisted on three meals for nine days, and to add to the horrors of the situation, they had to travel half-clad and bare-footed. When they arrived in Bruce Bay, they •were in the last stage of starvation. A young man of the name of Edward Finch lost himself in one of the gullies amongst the ranges in the Hampden district on the 4th inst., and was not found until the 6th. On the last named day a large party of bushmen and others went out, and succeeded in finding him. It appears he went out shooting, and being chased by some wild cattle, in escaping from them he lost himself. He had managed to shoot a wild pig, and a Maori hen, and had subsisted upon them. When found, he was wandering about the gully carrj'ing the pig's head. His friends were highly delighted to find him, with the exception of his being a little exhausted, all right. — Otago News Letter, March 17.

The cricket match between Wellington and Picton • has terminated in the defeat of the latter by 45 points. A dinner given to them by the Wellington Club took place in the evening, when about fifty gentlemen sat down to a capital repast at Mr. Osgood's Empire Hotel. Toasts and songs were the order of the evening after dinner, and it being Saturday night the company separated shortly before midnight. It was proposed in the course of the evening that a return match should take place this season. We should be glad to see these Interprovincial Cricket Matches more general. Narrow Escape fkom Dkowxing. — On Monday last a young man, Mr. Thomas Hardwicke, traveling from Turakina to this town saw a little girl struggling in the Turakina river ,he at once bravely plunged in, rescued, and restored her unharmed to her parents with the exception of a great fright and ducking. The child, who was the daughter of Mr. Middlemiss, of Turakina, it is supposd, had been playing on the river bank and fell in. The parents gave Hardwicke £1 as a reward for his courage. — Wanganui Times, March 15. Arrival, of the s.s. Tarauaki — We have to congratulate the New Zealand Steam Navigation Company on the arrival of this magnificent new steamer, which we believe has been constructed not only to perform her work efficiently, but to rival any vessel on the New Zealand coast in speed and comfort to passengers. The Taranaki is in every respect an improved Wellington, her dimensions and carrying power are the same as that vessel's, but she has the additional advantage of greater beam aft, with consequently larger accommodation for passengers, and from her lines she is likely to prove a most easy and comfortable, as well as a fast boat, in rough weather. She came out principally under canvas, having steamed only 27 days, during a portion of which she ran at the rate of 15 knots an hour, which proves her to be about the fastest steamer in these waters. The Taranaki was 106 days on the passage. — N.Z. Advertise?; March 26. Miss Buchanan, once rallying her cousin, an officer, on his courage, said, " Now, Mr. Harry, do you really mean to tell me you can walk up to a cannon's mouth without fear." "Yes," was the prompt reply "or a Buchanan's." And he did it. Moa's Egg. — The shell of a Moa's egg only slightly broken has been recently sold in England by auction for .£l2O : it measured 10 inches in length by 7 in breadth. We might mention that an egg we have seen of the smaller kind of kiwi a bird not much bigger than a good size fowl, measxires 4 inches and Jths in length by 3 inches and nearly 3-16ths in its greatest breadth, and weighed before being blown 15 ounces.