HOKITIKA.

Evening Star, Volume III, Issue 806, 5 December 1865, Page 2

HOKITIKA.

(From the West Coast Times.)

Some very lamentable results have attended the late rush to the South in the Totara district, and which, from the information we have lately

received, leads to the belief that after -all it was occasioned by a false report, deliberately spread by interested parties. Our informant is a miner, who stated that he w;as one of the unfortunate deluded ones who followed the supposed prospector many miles in search of the golden locality. He describes the country they travelled over as almost inaccessible ; in some places so steep that the ranges could. only be scaled by the aid of the supplejacks and vines with which their sides were covered, and so great was the excitement existing amongst the “ mob ” of two or three hundred men who accompanied them, that many were trodden under foot and thrown down the hill sides. One poor fellow had his leg broken, another an arm ; a dislocated shoulder was the reward of another, and numerous were the bruises and contusions suffered by others. After two days’ unsuccessful search, the cruel deceit practised on them became so apparent that the crowd surrounded the fellow who had misled,them, and demanded an explanation; whereupon he confessed his guilt, declaring he had been tempted by a store-keeper to cause a rash, in order that the country might be prospected. Great was the wrath of . all assembled, and summary vengeance proposed, some being in favor of hanging him, others advocated a milder treatment, that his ears should be cut off and his head shaved ; but after much discussion it was finally resolved to convey him to the camp at Ross Town, and hand him over to the authorities, but by some mischance whilst taking him thither he managed to give them the slip, and has not since' been heard of. ' We hear that many poor fellows were lost in the ranges for several days, and on finally arriving at Jones’s creek were so exhausted, having been without food the whole time, as to fairly drop down with fatigue and want of sustenance. It is also feared that some are yet in the bush, and, if so, that their lives are sacrificed.