A RAILWAY ACCIDENT.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXI, Issue 9455, 10 March 1894, Page 2 (Supplement)

A RAILWAY ACCIDENT.

SEVEN PEOPLE DROWNED.

EXTRAORDINARY RECOVERY OF A - BODY. On the evening of January 14 a locomotive plunged through a bridge ab Austin Creek, near Cazadero,, Sonoma County, California, and seven people lost their lives, amongst the victims being a man named R. H.

Sabine.

After two weeks of fruitless search for the body of Mr. Sabine by all the people of the neighbouring counties for miles around nearly everybody had given up the search except the near relatives of the lost man, and they were about to relinquish their efforts and give up all hope of finding the body, when, like a drowning man catching ab a straw, they sent to Bolinas in Marin County for Senor Bonacho, an ancient Mexican who claims to have a novel method for finding bodies of drowned persons. Senor Bonacho is very old, claiming to have seen the stars and sunshine of ninetysix years. He is entirely blind in one eye and can see bub dimly with the other, and is a very devout Catholic. This quaint old Mexican, accompanied by a young man from Marin County, Fred Gracoa, went up to Cazaderoon Monday, January 29, on the regular train, arriving there about one o'clock p.m. He spent the remainder of that day, ail of that night, and a portion of Tuesday morning in prayer. At about ten o'clock on Tuesday forenoon Senor Bonacho, together with his attendant and an eager crowd of spectators, repaired to the scone of the accident, when the Senor prepared to try his novel scheme to find the body. He had with him an ordinary wax candle and a piece of board about six inches long by eight inches wide, in tho centre of which ho bored a hole, and around the hole driven four nails. In this socket ha set the candle, lighted it, and then prayed, inviting all present to kneel while he did so. After a short season of prayer on tho bank of the creek, at the place at which the engine went into the creek on the fatal night, the Senor told the spectators that he would set the board with the lighted candle on it to float down the creek with the current, and that, when the board arrived ab the place where the I body was it would sail round and round in i a circle, and would go no further down the creek. He then launched his little bark on its voyage of discovery down tho swifc running stream. He and another man got into a boat that was waiting for them and followed the littlo beacon on its devious and winding voyage down the creek, while the rest of the company made their way the best they could along tho bank of the creek, and some in the bed of the creek when it was possible to do so. Tho board and candle turned over many times as it went over the riffles and miniature falls of the creek. Sometimes it would float into an eddy near the bank, make one circle of the eddy, then pass on with the current down the stream. Ab last, when about a mile and a-quarter from the place of starting, the board left the strong main current, went into an eddy next to the bank, and continued to sail round and round with the eddy several times. One of the SDCCtatora pushed it out into tho main current, but it went back again, and continued on its circular course. At this time Senor Bonacho with his boat arrived at the place, surveyed the situation as best he could with his one dim eye, and told the parties there not to push the candle out into the current again; that the body was right there, and that they must search carefully for it. They searched in the water around where the board and candle floated, but found no body. There was a gravel bar toward the other side of the creek from where the board and candle floated in the eddy that was just above the water. Upon this gravel bar there was a small heap of brush, sticks, and bark thab had been washed there by the current in its higher stages. They commenced to dip over and remove this small pile of debris when they discovered the elbow of a man protruding from the gravel to the height of about four inches, the rest of the body being buried in the sand, some parts to the depth of two feet or more. Senor Bonacho immediately took the board and candle from the water, curried ib to the shore, lit the candle, and proceeded to offer up a prayer, insisting? at the same time upon all present kneeling with him, which they did. He had accomplished in a little more than an hour what scores of men had been seeking to accomplish for two weeks, and failed. [In connection with the above it may be mentioned that the accident took place within a few miles of the house of Mr. J. D. Connelly, American Consul at Auckland, whose wife writes to say that the account given of the finding of Mr. Sabine's body is perfectly correct. Mr. Connelly was himself acquainted with nearly all those who perished in the accident.] ______________