FIVE DAYS AT THE BOTTOM OF A SHAFT.

Evening Post, Volume XIV, Issue 50, 28 August 1876, Page 2

FIVE DAYS AT THE BOTTOM OF A SHAFT.

The Inglewood correspondent of the Bendigo Advertiser gives the following account of the extraordinary sufferings endured by a man named Joseph Walker, who had been missing from Inglewood for several days, but turned up again on Tuesday, the loth inst.: — He parted company with an acquaintance, Desfandes, at midnight on Friday. He was then drunk. Deslandes reached home soon after, and by Saturday night all on the farm, not hearing of Walker's arrival, became anxious. Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday morning were spent in searching for the missing man, but no trace of him could be found. At last, on Tuesday afternoon. Mrs. Wright was astonished to see a wild-looking man, without hat, coat, or boots, with glaring eyes and haggard look, all remaining clothes being torn to shreds, racking towards her house. She did not know him at first, but soon found that it was no other than the missing man Walker. He sank down exhausted in the place, and afterwards related to several persons the cause of his unaccountable absence. He stated that, being quite drunk at the time Deslandes left him, he must have tried to make his way to the farm, and in doing so crossed the creek in a shallow part, and then continued on until he walked down an old shaft 46 feet deep. He does not remember falling, bat found himself at the bottom on becoming sober little the worse for his fall, there being some mud into which he sank up to his knees. Observing that it was daylight, he commenced shouting' and cooeying, and kept it up until darkness set in. When daylight again showed he resumed cooeying, aud then tried to climb up, but there being no foot-holes he soon desisted. Next day (Sunday) he had got too weak to shout and made another effort to liberate himself, trying to dig foot-holes with a piece of wood, which soon proved too rotten, and, being without a pocketknife, he gave it up in despair. On Monday the pangs of thirst became unbearable. He says he thinks that evening he must have been getting delirious, for he lay down thinking that Mrs. Wright, one of the last persons he had seen, was making tea for him, and he was drinking, enjoying it with all kinds of delicacies in the way of food. That night he had quite made up hia mind that he was to die there. On Tuesday morning he decided to make desperate efforts to get up the shaft, thinking, as lie states, that he might as well be killed in struggling for liberty as to quietly starve to death. He divested himself of coat, hat. and boots, and commenced to wriggle himself up with elbows, shoulders, and feet, chimney-sweep fashion, tearing and cutting his flesh at every movement. In this way he climbed to within four feet of the surface, and then fell to the bottom again, cutting and bruising himself.

After a short rest he commenced the painful process again, aud after much labor got his Bead level with the surface. He clutched a twig* which broke, and in order to save himself from another descent, threw himself forward and caught hold of a log. There he hung in frightful agony for a few minutes, and finding his arms failing, raised himself up a little and partly hung by his chin, and so, after resting his arms a little, managed, with much difficulty and labor, to drag himself clear, once more standing on the surface, but a terrible object to look at. The duration of Walker's imprisonment was five days and four nights, or about 106 hours, being without food all that v tTme, and nine hours previously.