Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

they still adhered to the old beliefs, had to stand on the defensive. It was plain that the Holy history and the Holy Land and the Holy Bible must alike pass through the crucible, and be tested by careful examination. The Scriptures had to meet it, and they are still undergoing the ordeal. The Holy Land is now being examined in a scientific spirit. The first to lead the way was Dr. Edward Robinson, professor at Andover College, and afterwards at Union Theological Seminary, New York. He was well skilled in sacred learning, and had studied some time in Germany-that great land of patient and philosophic inquiry. Dr. Robinson spent fifteen years in reading and mastering the literature which had grown up in the course of time around the Holy Land. When therefore he started on his journey he was thoroughly equipped for investigation. He knew what he wanted to see, and he knew what had been already professedly ascertained. But it was his purpose to test all localities by strictly scientific inquiry. He found a companion specially fitted to assist him in Dr. Eli Smith, of Beyrout, an Arabic scholar second to none, and who had other qualifications suited to careful observation. They made their first journey in 1838, going by way of the desert to Jerusalem, and thence towards the north. Dr. Robinson had come to the painful conviction "that all ecclesiastical tradition respecting the sacred places in and around Jerusalem, and throughout Palestine, is of no value, except so far as it is supported by circumstances known to us from the Scriptures or from He thus questemporary history." tioned all traditionary sites. He published the fruits of his researches

con

He

in two large volumes, in 1841. His work made a great sensation, and produced several critical rejoinders. The Rev. George Williams, M.A.a man of much erudition, combated Dr. Robinson's views. Dr. Robinson made a second visit in 1852, and carefully re-examined the country. had again the happy fellowship and the accurate Arabic scholarship of Dr. Eli Smith. A third volume embodying the narrative of his tour was issued in 1856. These works are a vast storehouse of learning and information - those to which they gave rise are also of great value. Travellers henceforth went with better preparation, and each contribution to the literature of Palestine possessed additional interest. Yet when in 1863 the great modern Bible Dictionary, edited by Dr. William Smith, was published, Sir George Grove complained there remained still a great want of accurate knowledge about the sites in Palestine. In 1865, chiefly through his exertions, the Palestine Exploration Fund was started, for the purpose of making an accurate survey of the Holy Land, and for otherwise exploring it. The objects to be promoted were the geography, the archæology, the botany, the zoology, the geology, the meteorology of the Holy Land, the manners and customs of the present inhabitants, the careful examination of all Arabic names, and everything which could throw light upon a country so closely connected with the correct interpretation of the Bible. The fund was inaugurated under the patronage of the Queen, and a general committee of distinguished men interested in antiquarian and biblical research. What it has succeeded in doing will be the subject of a few monthly papers.

A LAPSE OF MEMORY.

When Jack was poor, the lad was frank and free;
Of late he's grown brimful of pride and pelf;
You wonder that he don't remember me;
Why so? You see he has forgot himself.

-Hackett.

LOST IN THE BUSH.

By R. R. HAVERFIELD.

It is hard to conceive a position more cheerless to say the very least of it-than that in which a man finds himself on being compelled to give himself up for lost in the bush. I cannot speak from personal experience, because I may say without egotism, I have a very fair faculty of finding my way, and have never had the misfortune to be placed in any position from which I could not extricate myself by the help of a little patience and self-deliberation. And I have been thrown into some rather puzzling predicaments in the bush, too. It has, therefore, always been. matter of wonder to me that many very sensible men, immediately on losing their way should seem wilfully to set themselves to work to get rid of their wits.

I remember when I was quite a "new chum" in this country, hearing some gentlemen in Melbourne relate, with much glee, how His Honour Mr. Justice Willis, the first judge ever appointed in Victoria, had been lost in the bush. His Honour resided at Heidelberg, on the Yarra, about eight or nine miles from Melbourne. It appeared that the Judge, after his day's work in the court, was proceeding homeward alone on horseback. Having his head full of some knotty points, no doubt, he got off the road; and when he awoke to a sense of surrounding circumstances, he found himself in what he considered the wild bush, and without any conception whatever of his whereabouts. My belief is that the road being winding or serpentine in parts, as most first bush-roads were, his horse was making a short cut, and that it would have been far better for his Honour if he had remained in his reverie a little longer, as the horse would, no doubt, have brought him on to the road again. As it happened, however, he roused himself, became alarmed, and, taking the navigation

into his own hands, rode about for several hours in all directions, you may depend upon it, but the right one. How he contrived to get home I can't tell you; but he did at last, rather late in the evening. In relating the story to his friends, the Judge was wont to say: "I can assure you that in the whole course of my life I was never before in such a state of mental excitation." Now, that is what they all say, though they may not express themselves in precisely the same terms. They lose their heads, in point of fact, and all of them not being so fortunate as Judge Willis, they ride wildly about until both themselves and their horses are completely exhausted. Then they lie down overcome with fatigue, and, being tormented not only by their fears, but by the pangs probably of hunger and thirst, they fall into a state of fever, upon which, unless help should providentially reach them in time, supervene delirium and death. It is lamentable to think how many valuable lives have been sacrificed in this way. The instances that have come to my knowledge are so numerous that I could occupy the whole of the space at my disposal in giving the harrowing details. But it is not my intention to ask my readers to submit to any such infliction. That Judge Willis should have got off his road, and found himself entangled, as he supposed, in the mighty mazes of the primeval forest, or that other persons as little experienced as he should have lost their way at various times in the bush, is not a matter for wonder; but that men long used to travelling in our trackless wastes should fall into a state of confusion and excitement, bordering on madness, on becoming puzzled as to the course they should take, to my mind almost surpasses belief, and yet instances of the sort have frequently occurred.

16

Mr. Eyre, the great South Australian explorer, a man of wonderful endurance and great courage, was once lost in the Mallee somewhere to the north of Lake Hindmarsh; was thrown, as I have heard, into a pitiable state of "mental excitation," and was found by one of his men in a delirious and nearly dying condition within a short distance of his own camp. Certainly great excuses may be made for Mr. Eyre. The weatherit was in February, 1838-was intolerably hot. He was attempting to make his way from Port Phillip to Adelaide with a herd of cattle, and a large party of men, for whose safety he was responsible; and had found himself blocked by a waterless tract of scrub, in attempting to get through which, by himself, he became lost; and his anxiety. not on his own account merely, but on account of his charge, may be readily imagined. Yet this gentleman performed so daring and difficult a feat of exploration two or three years afterwards, in crossing from Fowler's Bay to Albany in Western Australia, along the great Australian Bight, that he was considered by the Imperial Government worthy of a high reward. He was, as may be remembered, at an after time Governor of Jamaica.

In the same part of the country as that in which Mr. Eyre lost himself, Mr. Edward White, an experienced surveyor, and a gentleman who had been engaged for a considerable time in squatting pursuits, very nearly lost his life. Mr. White had been employed by the Government to run the boundary line between Victoria and South Australia, from the coast near the mouth of the Glenelg to the Murray. All went well until he got into the Mallee, when he had a really dreadful time of it from want of water. At last he sent back his men to a place where there permanent water, and proceeded himself in the direction of the Murray. Some time before reaching that river his horse had knocked up, and if I remember rightly, he had been compelled to leave him in the scrub.

was

There can

be no doubt that Mr. White lost his senses completely on this journey. Fortunately, however, at last, more certainly by good luck than good navi

He

gation, he emerged from the Mallee on to the banks of the Murray. had been some days I do not know how many-without food or water, and was voraciously hungry. Meeting a blackfellow with a freshcaught fish in his hand, in his mad eagerness for food, he knocked the unfortunate savage down, and, as I have heard people say, who were living in the neighbourhood at the time, devoured the fish there and then, raw as it was.

Captain Francis Cadell, the wellknown explorer, who, by the way, was brutally murdered in his own vessel by one of his crew, whilst engaged in pearl-fishing in the Sea of Arafura, a few years ago, was about the pluckiest and most venturesome man I ever met with. No dangers could daunt him, and no difficulties turn him from his purpose. And I must here add, as a passing tribute to his memory, that he was as kind, and good, and generous as he was brave. But the captain, although undoubtedly a superb seaman, had one great fault as a bushman; he would lose himself! The fact was he always rode hard when by himself, and was continually attempting what he called "short cuts;" his numerous mishaps in which attempts failed to teach him the value of the axiom that "the longest way round is generally the shortest way home." His daring disposition and supreme self-confidence made him despise so homely a precept and laugh to scorn all the warnings of his friends. On one occasion, being in a great hurry to get to Adelaide, he left one of the stations on the Middle Darling, with the intention of making one of his "short cuts" to the North-west Bend of the Murray-a distance, I think, of about 150 miles. He rode, of course, in his usual style, at a great pace, until he got into some scrubby country, when his horse began to show signs of fatigue, and the captain, hardy as he was, felt not a little knocked up.

"I was so precious hungry," he said, in relating his adventure, "that I could off gnaw have eaten my boots, and did an inch or so of one of my bridle reins. But after a while I was attacked by a raging thirst, and I do believe I would have given the best steam-vessel I

[graphic]

I found a white woman with a baby in her arms, sitting at the foot of a tree.

« AnteriorContinuar »