LOST IN THE AUSTRALIAN BUSH.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 83, 9 April 1929, Page 6

LOST IN THE AUSTRALIAN BUSH.

An ugly side to the Australian bush comes to mind when thinking of the risks of flying over the desert. That is the scarcity of 'water, though fortunately in the case of the Southern' Cross this danger should not arise, for there has been heavy rain and the water holes will be full. Only those who have faced death in its most agonising form can realise the terror that conies to a man face to face with the awful possibilities of a death from thirst. Here in New Zealand such possibilities are remote, if not altogether removed, but to the Australian bushmau they are ever present. To the person who gets bushed it is the first thought. The food problem is of secondary consideration. One can last -i week or more without food, but in the hot parts a day without water will work havoc with even a strong man's mind and body. And it is the mind that counts in such a situation. The psychological changes that comc over one are alarming. Those who have been fortunate to «-et through a "tight pinch" find them hard to define, although they have left an indelible impression' on the memory. Of my own impressions I can recall but few. One peculiar result is that even to this day, after a lapse of over twenty years, I cannot bear to see water running to waste. If I pass a house tap running I must needs turn it off.

| It was while prospecting on the Western Australian goldfields that I got mv last shaking up. I recollect that I had nearly £200 strapped across my waist, and that I would have given half of it, if not the lot, for a drink of water. I was in what is called dangerous country, but. as good luck had it, in the last stages of exhaustion I managed to crawl up to a condenser. But not before I bad gone through a weird experience. All the water in the area between Coolgardie and Norseman is salt and has to be condensed for drinkiu<» purposes. It was dusk when I first saw the glow of the condenser fires, but my mind was in :t delirious state and I was in doubt as to whether it was a reality. I had been in a dreamy state for a long time previous, and had been* houses and tanks where in actuality there was nothing but the interminable mulga and quartz outcrops. When a man is lost in the bush for a day or two, suffering for the want of water, he invariably sheds his clothes bit by bit and' losiflg all sense of locality, commences*to wand >r in a circle. If searchers are out for him die finding of a coat or waistcoat is naturally :i -.ivt help. A black tracker will then invariably find the man, but whether alive or dead is another matte*. —J.H,