WHAT TO DO WHEN LOST IN THE BUSH.

Colonist, Volume VII, Issue 664, 8 March 1864, Page 3

WHAT TO DO WHEN LOST IN THE BUSH.

The following- directions are given by a correspondent of the Sydney Herald. It maybe observed that there is much less chance in New Zealand of suffering from want of water than the Australian bush:—

When you find you are lost, light a fire directly, and recollect that at least in New South Wales you cannot be many miles from a habitation. Eecollect also that you have no wild beasts to encounter, and above all things, recollect that those who have died in the bush have, in nearly every case that has come to our knowledge, died by traveling in a circle. Men have been known to travel upwards of two hundred miles, and yet^ find themselves within a few miles of their starting-point. Hence the necessity for fires. Light another within visual distance, and the third will enable you to keep a straight line. In a short time such fires would come to be recognised as those made by a person lost in the bush, and, to help any one who may set out on your'track, take a stick, make a cross on it with charcoal in the direction from the fire in which you are travelling. The presence of fire, or indead its sight, has a well known effect in relieving despondency ; and it has another effect, which may be of incalculable b .uiefit to the wanderer,—every domestic dog which sees it will begin to bark. But perhaps you are perishing from thirst. Now, I always suppose when a man takes a journey through the bush he has a light tomahawk. That is the only implement" he requires to ensure his safety in any part of the bush throughout this wide island. Take a sapling or young tree of any of the Eucalypti tribe, or, to make my meaning plainer, iron-bark, stringy-bark, gum in its varieties—or blackbutt will answer the purpose—fell it in lengths, say ton feet; up-end it, and if your billy or quart pot is not large enough to receive it, place a cloth under it, and wring the exuvaj into your drinking vessel. By this means you will secure enough liquid to prevent the glands of your throat from swelling, thereby producing suffocation. In order to enable mo to write this article in good faith, I felled an ironbark sapling 12 feet in length by 4 inches in diameter, and obtained from it a pint of juice, drinkable in a case of necessity, and not very unpleasantly astringent. I found a trifle more from the gums, and a little less from the stringy-bark. None of the wattle tribe will answer, nor apple tree, or indeed any tree I know but those I have mentioned, and one species or other of those trees will be found in any part of the colony—l should have said the island.

"Well, hunger is the next evil, if you have been lost a considerable time without a commissariat. _ Here, also, your tomahawk will stand you in good stead. When you see a fallen tree, especially with bark upou it, which is much perforated, you wiJl surely find a quantity of the large white grub upon which the natives of this country subsist in wet weather, and which some white men have become amazingly found of, and who declare that they.are a perfect land oyster wanting the shell; of course if you arepinched you will not be very fastidious - but should you, give them a slight roasting. I must supplement this by informing you that you will find those grubs in any decayed wood, whether standing or fallen; that a couple of dozen of them will support a healthy man for twelve hours, and with a caution that you must eschew the use of tobacco in any shape, as subtracting the saliva from the system.