LOST IN THE BUSH.

Otago Witness, Issue 3018, 17 January 1912, Page 3

LOST IN THE BUSH.

OTAGO STUDENT'S AVDENTURES. (From Cjdk Own Correspondent.) WELLINGTON, January 10. The Poet tells the story of an Otago medical student who was lost during the Christmas holidays in the wild Urewera Country beyond Opotiki. "On Friday morning about 10 o'clock," he says, " I started from Opotiki for the long ride over the bridle track to Motu. It rained all day, and hailed as I struck into the mountains. It is a very lonely country, as there is not a single house between Papamoa and Motu. The bridle track is terrible in places. It is hewn out of the solid rock for a mile at a stretch, and there is just room for horse and rider. One slip and you would be over in the gully below, so steep and so deep that you can't see the bottom of it from the track. I had an axe with me, and I needed it to cut away trees that had fallen across the track. As I travelled along in the storm I could hear trees, uprooted by the gale, crashing over one another as they fell into the abyss. It was bush, bush, all along, full of pigeons and pigs. Now and again the big boars were bold enough to come on the track, and they almost scared the life out of the horse with their snorting and sniffing. I rode as fast as I could to get out of the bush if possible before the day .waa done, but darkness came on early with the perpetual rain. I came to a place where there were two tracks. One went straight ahead, and other turned to the left. The side track seemed to be newly cut, so, thinking that it was the continuation of the track along which I had come already, I took it, though the horse jibbed and wanted to go straight ahead. For an hour or so I splashed on,' and then I discovered that I was on a branch track down the old road. It was now too dark and too late to turn back, so I went on a little, looking to see if j there might be a bush camp or a settler's j whare about somewhere. There was j nothing but bush. It was now midnight, and too dark to travel on such a rough track without moon or stars to help me to pick out the way, so I pulled into the bush and searched for a hollow tree. I plunged far into the bush, but I could not find one. I was too tired to go any further, so I pulled the saddle off the horse, and, after tying the reins to my arm, I lav down to sleep. I could not [ sleep, as I was too hungry, cold, wet, and miserable. "When daylight came next morning I knew I was lost. Stall the horse had to i be fed. so I travelled further and I further into the bush looking for grass. ' I found a patch or two for him, but I had no food for myself. While I wandered on in this way the day passed, and I had to spend another night in the bush. I felt I terribly hungry, as I had had nothing to eat for a day and a-half. I lay down again on the saddle, and spent the night I awake in misery. On Sunday the hungry feeling wore off, and I again tried to find the track, but again without success I could not get out into the open to find the lav of the country. The rain came down in bucketfuls on Sunday night, and I felt so despondent and utterly wretched that I prayed that a tree would fall on me and end it all. On Monday I wandered on, searching for the track, and at last, about 5 p.m., when I was just about done, I struck it all right. I was glad. I kept to it all night, and soon after midnight I saw something white in the distance. I took it for a cowshed, and made up my mind to pass the night there. When I reached it I J found it was a house, and I knocked and

kicked at the door and rattled at the windows, but got no answer. I Avent round to the back door and opened it, and shouted at the top of my voice, but still there was no answer. I unsaddled my horse and left him. in the yard, and went inside. I heard a clock ticking in the next room, and groping my way in the darkness I found it and a box of matches beside it. I lit a candle, and inspected the house. There was a nice bed in one of the rooms, and it was not long before I was sound asleep in it. I awoke early next morning, made a fire, and dried "ray clothes, and had a meal of seeded raisins—all the food I could find about. Then I caught my horse, and rode on towards Motu, where I had the first decent meal I had had for nearly four days. On the rest of the way to Gisborne nothing happened ; but I am just up from a bad attack of rheumatism through the four days' exposure in the bush."