The Sun.
London, England, 1859-10-24 00:00:00

SUR, LONDON, MONDAY EVENING, OCTOBER 24, 1859.

to Gisborne, and here; for want of a better place to
give my entertainment in, I availed myself of a small
brewery in course of construction, using the empty
barrels for seats, and making my dressing:room in a
large vat, However, the brewery stands in an open
field, and to get to it you have to jump three ditches
and balance yourself on two planks. The night of
opening proving very wet, I cannot say
that my audience was very large or very dis-
tinguished. Opera cloaks and Gibus hats were not
very numerous, and my family and myself
had to be carted from the hotel at some distance
opposite to the door of the brewery. I had, how-
ever, as fine an audience of well-drenched bullock-
drivers as I suppose were ever assembled to an
entertainment in Australia.
From Gisborne I came to Melbourne, where,
at the Olmypic Theatre, Mr. Coppin has lately been
giving a series of performances for the benefit of
the charities at that place. His return to the stage
has been considered by some of the newspapers to
be a breach of good faith with those who elected
him to the Legislative Council.
We have had a Handel Festival in Melbourne.
It came off at the Exhibition Building. On the
first night there were selections from " Samson,"
" Judas Maccabeus," and " Israel in Egypt," and
on the second night from the " Messiah." The
great star of the evening was Mr. Farquharson
Smith, who has returned from his trip to Calcutta
with his pockets overladen with golden ,nohurs, and
his fine voice considerably improved. He talks about
visiting England. Should he go there he will make
a sensation, for he is twenty times a better singer
than when he left,
The entrance to the Theatre Royal has been con-
verted into an enormous Cafe for the million, and
entitled " the Vestibule." It is ornate with foun-
tains, vases, and pictures, lighted with large gas
" sunlights," and furnished with marble tables, and
vet% et-covered chairs. The proprietors, Messrs.
Spiers and C. Pond, are two of the most enterpris-
ing men in the colony.
I am going to India, and when you receive this I
shall probably be half-way to Bombay. I wished
to give some final performances in the city, but found
it very difficult to get a place. I offered Mr. Brooke
£l,OOO for a month at the Theatre Royal, which he
declined. I could have taken the Princess's Theatre,
but nobody would guarantee that 'could get out of it
as safely as I could easily get in. Then there was
the Hippodrome, but the carpenters wanted £l9O
to p-ut down a floor and build a small, stage. Mr.
Hingston hunted up Melbourne for a fortnight,
whilst I was playing elsewhere, but was unsuccess-
ful, and I have therefore concluded an arrangement
to play in dramatic pieces for six nights, at the
Olympic.

OBRA 2' BALLOON VOYAGE IN
AAIERICA.-.EXT.RAORDINA.RY ESCAPE.

(From the. Watertown Reformer, Pennsylvania.)
John A. Haddock, who accompanied La Moun-
tain in his late alarming ascension on the 22d ult., al
Watertown, Pa., has performed the duty of historic)•
grapher of the voyage. At the signal "Let go all,"
they started at 20 minutes before six p.m., with the
thermometer indicating .84 degrees. After an
ascent and flight of eight minutes the ther-
mometer showed a fall of 24 degrees, and the
voyagers found it necessary to put on all their extra
clothing. At 650 it was dark and they descended
in a wood, fastened the balloon to a spruce tree,
and remained in the basket, chilled with rain and
cold till morning. In the morning, aided by the
warmth of the sun acting upon the gas in the balloon
and by throwing over almost everything, the balloon
was again caused to ascend, but it took a northerly
course, and it was again made to descend in a
lumbering country, where it was left lashed to a
tree. A piece of a pork barrel, bearing a Montreal
brand, assured them that they were in Canada.
From this point we give Mr. Haddock's narrative
until they reached the cabin of some lumber men
on the Rospetong river.
This settled the question that we ware in Canada,
for I very well knew that no Montreal inspection
of pork ever found its way into the interior of New
York State. We travelled all day, Friday, up the
unknown creek, which kept its general course to
the south of west, crossing it about Been on a float-
ing log, and striking, on its southern bank, a
" blazed" track, which led us up to a deserted
timber road, lying on the opposite side froin a large
lumbering shanty. We hoped one of the lumber
roads might take us but to a settlement, but after
travelling up them all until they terminated in
the wilderness, we concluded to cross the creek
to the shanty, and stay in it all night. La Moun-
tain got across safely, but my
.weight was greater
than his, and the raft let me into the stream. I
sank in all over, and swam out, though it required
all my strength to do so, and on reaching the bank
I found myself so chilled as scarcely to be able to
stand. I took off my clothes, wrung them, and we
proceeded to the shanty, where we found plenty of
refuse straw, but it was dry, and under a pile of it
we crawled, pulling it over our heads and faces in
the hope that our breath might aid in warming our
chilled bodies. I think the most revengeful, stony
heart would have pitied our condition then. The
weary hours of night at last wore away, and we held
a new council. It was evident, we reasoned, that the
creek we were upon was used for " driving logs in
the spring season." If, then, we followed it to its con-
fluence with the Ottawa, or some stream which emp-
tied into the Ottawa, we would in time get out the
same way the timber went. The roof of the shanty
was covered with the halves of legs, scooped out in a
manner familiar to all woodmen. These were light
and dry, and would form an excellent raft. Why
not, then, take four of these, tie them to cross
pieces by withes and such old things as we could
find around the shanty, and pole the structure down
to that civilisation which a saw log ought to be
able to reach. Such was the course we adopted.
We dragged the logs down to the creek, and La
Mountain tied them together, as he was evidently
more of a sailor than myself. We got under way,
and as we pushed off a crow set up a dismal caw-
ing—an inauspicious sign, and ominous of the great
trials and sufferings in store for us We poled
down stream about 10 miles, and came abruptly
upon an immense pine tree, which had fallen across
the stream, completely blocking the passage of the
raft. No other alternative was left but to untie
the pieces and attempt to push them through un-
der the log. This was at last done ; tied the
raft together again, and poled her down stream.
To-day we each ate a raw frog, all we could find,
and began to feel that we were hungry. But there
was no complaining—our. talk was of the hopeful
future, and the civilisation we hoped yet to reach.
Down the creek we went into a lake some two miles
long, and into which we of course supposed the
stream passed, having its outlet at the lower end.
We followed down the northern bank, keeping
always in shallow spots, so that our poles could
touch the bottom, until we arrived at the bottom of
the lake, where we found no outlet, and turned back
upon the southern bank in quest of it. On reaching
the head of the lake we found that the current of
the creek turned abruptly to the right, which was
the cause of our losing it.
We felt happy to have found it again, and plied
our poles like heroes. We passed, during the day,
the spot where we had first struck the creek, and
where we had made a slight landmark, which
might afterwards aid us in finding the At-
lantic, should we ever wish to do so in order
to get her out. At night we did not stop,
but kept the raft going down through the
shades of awful forests, whose solemn silence seemed
to hold the unieTealed mystery of our darkening
future. About 10 o'clock it began to rain again.
We stopped the "vessel," and crawled in under
some " tag " alders, on the bank, where our extreme
weariness enabled us to get, perhaps, half an hour's
sleep. Rising again (for it was easier to pole at
night in the rain down an unknown stream than
to lie on the ground and freeze), we pressed on for
a couple of hours, until about three o'clock, when
pure exhaustion induced us to stop again. This
time we found a spot where the elayey bank
lacked a little of coming down to the water. On
the mud we threw our little bundle of straw, and
sat down with our feet drawn under us, so that
our bodies presented as little surface as possible
for the rain to beat upon. But we could not
stand such an uncomfortable position long,
and as the daylight of the Sabbath broke
upon us, we were polling down the stream
in a drizzling rain. At eight o'clock we came to a
place where the stream canoned—rushing over a
stony bed, down a steep descent between high
rocks on either bank. To get our raft down this
place we regarded as hopeless, We tied up) and
examined the shore. Here, again, we found un-
mistakeable evidence of lumbermen, as they had
evidently camped at this point to be handy; by the
attempts they were doubtless oi,liged to =kelt° get
the timber down the canon. The rapids were about
a third of a mile long, and in all the rapids of Black
River there is nothing so wild and romantic as
these. We descended the bank, and thought it best
to try our luck on foot. After travelling about ti
mile we, found a bank so tangled and rugged, and
ourselves so much exhausted that locomotion was
impossible. So we concluded to go back, and if we
could get the raft down a piece at a time, we would
go on with her; if not, we would build as good a
place as possible to crawl into, and prepare for
death.
We went back and after examining the stream
attentively, concluded to try to get the raft down.
We at one commenced, and I freely confess this is
the most trying and laborious work of a life of la-
our. The pieces would not float over a rod at a
time before they would stick on some stone which
the low water left above the surface, ani then you
must pry it over in some way, and pass it along to