INTERCOLONIAL NEWS.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 4206, 12 September 1874, Page 3

INTERCOLONIAL NEWS.

QUEENSLAND. A Guild Lost in the Bush for Seven Days. —A little girl was lost in the hush between Connors River and Kookwood Station, in Northern Queensland, and was not found until the seventh day after being missed. The Peak Downs Telegram gives the following narrative :—“ The little gird has now quite recovered, and has told her parents as much of her solitary wanderings as w ill ever be known.. It seems that the black boy earned her for about five miles, when he got tired, and, setting her down, told her to walk back to the station. The child, being frightened, refused to go, and as a farther inducement he took off her boots. As she still refused to go back, this black hound beat her on the fingers with a ' small stick, and frightened her off. Of course, she soon lost the track, A child of that age ■would be almost certain to lose a good bush track, and this was a very bad one—in many places much overgrown with grass. For some days she wandered about in the long grass. She cannot tell how many, but the number can be made up. During this time nothing seems to have broken the monotony of her journey, besides the change from night to day, and from cold to warmth ; but on a certain day she came upon a large mob of horses. She seems to have looked upon anything with life as a friend, and so stayed with them all that day, losing them only after dark. In the course of the night she found a stump hole, and there she remained until the following evening, when her friends the horses again came in sight, and she followed them. In the darkness she again lost them, but in her wanderings fortunately came across a road soon after daylight, on which Mr. Gilham found her. On being asked if she was hungry she said she was not, but that she wanted water. Being found on the seventh day, and having for two days had the society of the horses, she must have wandered’in complete solitude for four days. So far as can be learnt, she had nothing to eat the whole time. She could not have lived without water, but those who know the bush will allow that a child of that age could get nothing to eat.” SOUTH AUSTRALIA. A Lady’s Views on tub City of Adelaide. —The Pastoral Times states that a lady, writing from Adelaide to a lady friend in Riverina, thus speaks :—“ We dislike this place most cordially, and look forward with anxious longing to the day when we shall be off Cape Leuwin, never to return. We have been a good deal about the world, but* I never saw a place that I would not gladly see again until I came here ; but I am sure nothing would ever induce us to return here. Everything is so excessively new —not an old building, not even a decent tree, nothing but these old gum trees, which are half dead, and stretch out their great bare skeleton arms in the most lamentable way. The tone of mind which all this newness engenders among the ‘ colonials’ is as evident as it is disagreeable—they are insolent, and wanting in anything like courtesy, deference, or reverence for anything noble, beyond belief. The place is America, without the glorious Puritan ancestry and heroism which the Americans have to elevate the national character (not that it has done much to elevate it, I must say). The place is just a horrid little republic, governed by the most successful butchers, ironmongers, and public-house keepers. Our Governor is a more automaton, who does nothing but play at Royalty, with a somewhat ludicrous effect, when one remembers that the population of the whole Colony is not more than half that of Glasgow, or any big town at Home. It is, indeed, ridiculous to hear the talk about the Upper House and the Lower House, and to see the Governor drive down to open Parliament with half a dozen policemen behind him, and to hear people talk about the ‘debates’—discussions which might be fairly classed with the ‘ debates’ of a small provincial town council at Home. The place ought to bo a Crown Colony, and governed absolutely by one man, with a head on his shoulders; it is utterly unfit to govern itself. As for its muchboasted climate, wo were never in a place where wo suffered so much from the bad effects of

climate. The heat is terrible for six months, and the sudden changes most The thermometer was often over 100. in our drawing-room, and imagine that, without punkalis, bad ice, and colonial servants.” If this lady is 'married, the poor husband must have a pleasant time of it.