WAYSIDE NOTES.

Evening Star, Issue 2914, 21 June 1872, Page 2

WAYSIDE NOTES.

(from our special correspondent.) Neois. Men in the winter time get on the spree in this dual town, as the frost prevents steady work. It is eminently a good drinking place. Periods of three and six months a'e devoted to the process of deglutition, one or more individuals at a time so hibernating. They have no other means of venting their superfluous steam ; the mailman only visits them twice a month ; a pedlar never introduces his wares into this remote locality, and a preacher only ventures here when he wants money to buy a new horse or a gown for his sacerdotal half. I advised a Jew pedlar once to try his fortune here, but he shrugged his shoulders, talked of distance, cold, and other evils incident to Nevis life. As a goldfield, it is scarcely touched—scratched over ; nothing more. When the rush to the West Coast first took place, the Nevis was in full work, then became deserted, bears a bad name, and has never yet recovered from its desertion, and maligned climate. At the present time it supports a population of about 200 Europeans, and 250 Chinese. Three months during the year may be the period allowed for frost—and the mining population to spend their earnings, which, as a rule, are considerable. It is impossible to tell the yield of the field, as some of the gold goes to Clyde, some to Cromwell, and some to Switzers. The workings are some thirty-four miles in length-a patch here, another there, without connection or continuity. The residents, like on all other goldfields, have an undeveloped and difficult flat to work—certainly fall of water. They dislike the idea of Government aid at 74 per cent., and have determined to allow the flat to remain unworked rather than to have Government assistance to form a tail-race, like the wise men of Naseby, They appear to be in no hurry about the matter, and have, as they themselves express it, too good a thing at their fingers’ ends to allow it to go a-begging. Nearly all the elements necessary to form a large and prosperous settlement are to be found on the Nevis. I went there expecting to find a mountain rivulet fenced in by the hills, and found a long, broad river-bed, with a scattered and sparse population, good agricultural land, and resources scarcely .touched—a place where ten times the population it now carries could be located and prosper; where thrifty Norsemen could live and prosper in generations to come, and where grain and general agricultural produce could be grown as well as in Wisconsin or Canada.

It wi 1 be remembered by many people how emphatically it was asserted grain of any description would never grow on the Frankton Flat. It was too high and too cold was the general cry; and they re-echo the same song at the Nevis. But in the time of the vision of men now living, farms will be fenced in, grain grown be converted into meal, children born who will eat, drink, marry, and die on the Nevis Yalley, which, although now frozen, shall, in the days here spoken of, be a prosperous and populous district. . _

I On the River Flat, at Starkey Town, there are some 4000 acres of available agricultural laud—l mean available for the future generation. There is a similar lot above the gorge, only higher and colder. A friend of mine wanted to fence and crop some land here, and was made the following liberal offer by the runholder. He should fence in the block substantially, take two ciops off it, and then allow it to revert to the lessee. While such liberal offers are rife for the occupancy of the soil, one can understand why potatoes grow almost alone on this sub- Alpine settlement. The beat brown coal the Province possesses is to be found on the Nevis. It is all on thp eastern side of the river. There are no leases nor rights there ; every man going digging for himself. The supply is practically inexhaustibleonly the surface being tested and scratched over. Wood there is none until it is grown ; and acclimatisation societies should learn what kind of trees are beit adapted to plant at high elevations. My visit was a hurried one and the weather wet, or I should have collectedmore information for you from this almost unknown and neglected locality.

None are so seldom found alone, and are so soon tired of their own company, as those coxcombs who are on the best terms with themselves.