THE AUSURALIAN BUSH AND GRASS FIRES.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 13180, 13 January 1905, Page 3

THE AUSURALIAN BUSH AND GRASS FIRES.

A THRILLING RAILWAY RUN.

Travellers by tho" Melbourne to Sydney express on the night of December 30 had an anxious time, tho sceno along the southern line being described as "something terrible." Guard Oox has what the Telegraph terms "shuddering recollections of tho journey." The v/inA played so heavily on tho flames that in some places tho fire travelled as fast as tho train. The fire took a great grip on the country as it swept along. On the return run from Sydney to Albury on Saturday night the express ran into burning country at Yerong Creek, 30 miles southward of Wagga, and the flames .practically formed an unbroken line right up to tho capital of the Murnimbidgee. From the flying passengers and officials could see houies being surrounded by the devouring element. Railway fencos on both sides of the line were burnt li'ke so much matchwood, and a weird spectacle was presented by a few charred panels left standing liere and_there, while the boundary lines for 20 or 30 panels m places totally disappeared. " I left Sydney on .Tuly 18, 1883, on my first trip with the Melbourne express," said Mr Oox, " and in all my "experience ever since I nevor saw anything like the dreadful sights I witnessed on the way back to Sydney." As far as the eye could reo the country was a prey to the flames, and the guard had' great fears for the safety of his train. Indeed, thero was no guarantee that tho express would not catoh fire, as for many miles the train was encompassed by (lames. "When I came in yesterday morning," Guard Cox remarked, "my brain was actually burning, I had lieen subjected to such a tension. I was.on the lookout all the way lost we should havo been burnt on the train. It was a most anxious time to everyone on board, audi we wero thankful when we got beyond the fire zone. There was not alone the danger of the train being burnt, but tho firo had been so destructive that, there was no telling when we might come to a culvert or bridge that had been reduced. This added to our anxiety, and we had'to redouble our efforts to bring the train back to Sydney without mishap." The discomfort of travelling was cned through tho necessity of keeping the windows closed so as to exclude the scorching blasts from the surrounding flames, The guard had no hesitation in pronouncing the journey to be the,-most dreadful and the record of all his long railway experience. SEEN FROM THE SEA.

A safer, but none the less terrible, view of the conflagrations was obtained from the decks of steamers passing aJoug the south coast. All officor of the Illawara Shipping Navigation Company's steamer Eden describes the sight as a. remarkable one. "In all the 20 years I ha,vo been in tho south coast trade," lie says, "I havo never seen the bush fires along the: coast so extensive and so fierce as they arc at present. Tho Dromedary Mountain was a. magnificent spectacle... It seemed to be on fire all over, and a dense cloud of smoke hung over it and the surrounding country like an immense pail. The jilarc of the sun • through the smoke on the surface of the' sea made , a weird sight,'being reflected from the waves from a deep ruby reel' to a richijoklen yellow, and with ibe rising and falling of we waves made tho sea look like a fiery. opal, Burnod leaves wore falling, on the steamer's decks when five miles off the land, and immense numbers of half-burned leaves covered the ocean for a distance of 15 miles north and south of Montague Island. We had Uie wind when passing tho Dromedary from the south-east,; and the scorched loaves were falline on our, clocks from that direction.. At Barmacui.it was'reported' that seven of the settlors in the surrounding districts had been burned clean out."

— There are .now 36,788 medical praetitioncrs in England, and the number in creases at the rate of eight per week.