THE NEW GOLDFIELD, UPPER WAIKAIA.

Evening Star, Issue 3317, 7 October 1873, Page 2

THE NEW GOLDFIELD, UPPER WAIKAIA.

I. —THE JOURNEY THERE. Two instincts are strongly developed in your Mount Penger correspondent, the migratory and the predatory. A Bohemian by choice, Colonial experiences have made him a social Esau, a hand uplifted against all, and all bands menaced against him. To such an animal—l am at times philosophical and indulge in self-study—the mere name of a new goldfield acts as an exciting cause. Port Darwin and New Guinea have already secured a future victim ; in the meantime the less perilous, if hardly less arduous journey to the Upper Waikaia has served as an escape valve for superfluous energy. ' The Upper Waikaia is about fifteen miles from the Teviot, but the track lies over the “ ('ld Man,” and is impassable to horsemen during the winter months. For my own part I shall always prefer riding a hundred miles to walking ten, so I took the route via Switzers, a distance of some ninety miles. I have already described the road to Switzers, and shall not delay your patient readers by a twice-told tale. Suffice it to say that I found all my old friends of the electioneering campaign well and hearty, and observed a great moral regeneration in the opinions of the natives, chiefly owing, I believe, to the enlightening influences of a few copies of the Evening Star. From Switzers to the Upper Waikaia the route lies up the valley of the river, through a fertile strath; to all appearance a place where bona fide agricultural settlement might be successfully inaugurated. It is girt in on both sides by mountain ranges, densely covered with bush, and in due timp will no dou -t rank high-as a food producing district. For some thirty miles the road is all the most exacting could desire —galloping ground every inch. Then the bush closes in, the ranges become more precipitous and draw together, the tug of war approaches- -the worst twelve miles of road in Otago, and consequently in the wide world. Fortunately, just before facing these perils, the house of a friendly settler, Mr fames Maclean, affords an opportunity for refreshing man and beast, and while ray Arab munches oats, 1 make a tenific onslaught on eggs and roast weka, winding up with a long and strong pull at my bosom companion— dulce deem et presidium meum - my canteen. Refreshed and invigorated 1 plunge into the bush. Birch, red, black, and white, without change, with neither lltanas uor undergrowth to relieve the monotony, still not without a weird sublimity. Those tall columnar trunks, with overhead the delicate tracery of intertwining foliage, form a living temple not uosuiced for lofty thoughts and high aspirations. But ts me the beautiful has little charm. My thoughts are of the earth, earthy, er rather of the mud, muddy. Now crawling up a steep spur, again sliding down a precipitous bank, plunging through fathomless abysses of slush, -ripping against roots, • cannoning against trunks, stumbling over hidden stumps, smashing and tearing, slipping and tripping, we—my horse and I—staggered over those terrible twelve miles. Our army in Flanders swore terribly, but I feel assured your correspondent in the Waikaia Bush was a match for the profanest battalion during that celebrated campaign. And to heighten the misery, all this trial of temper could be prevented by a trifling outlay. LSOO would make a serviceable road, passable by bullock teams at any rate, aud open up a vast extent of almost unprospected country. For ten out of the twelve miles I revelled in scandedum mognatum ; from the humblest doorkeeper t© the viceroy himself, I anathematised all officialdom; and when hoarseness and exhaustion robbed me of articulate utterance, I was silent—but, like the parrot, thought the more. Night fell before I attained Cosgrove’s accommodation-house, and then I found I could no more. Kind and hospitable treatment rallied my exhausted energies slightly, but that night my dreams were of the most grotesquely horrible description. Reminiscences of the Slough O' Despond and the man-fly jumbled themselves together, till the welcome dawn put a period to my misery. The next day I sallied forth to visit the claims, and the result of my ■ wanderings I shall embody in the second portion of my travels. {To be continued.)