THE KIMBERLEY GOLDFIELDS

Lyell Times and Central Buller Gazette, Volume VI, Issue 280, 3 July 1886, Page 3

THE KIMBERLEY GOLDFIELDS

The following appears in the Auckland Herald of June 16th :

Having read a great deal that lias been said in favour of Kimberley being a good climate, and one suitable for a white man to live and work in, I would like, with your kind permission, to place before your readers a few facts respecting the climate of that part of North-Western Australia lying between Cambridge Gulf 011 the north and Derby on the south. I formed one of a company who were duped into going to a place named Camden harbor, intending to form a settlement. Camden harbor is about 150 miles south of Cambridge Gulf. We were induced to go there by reading the report which Sir George Grey gave of the country and climate, which report, allow me to say, differed as much from the real fact of the place as the climate of New Zealand differs from that of the Soudan. I can safely affirm that, if. there is a rush from New Zealand to Kimberley, very few indeed will return to their homes or families again. It is no climate for a white man to work in. New Zealanders would die like sheep there. When I was there it was in December, and the heat was intense. The thermometer registered 140deg. in the shade for six hours each day. I saw

strong Australians trying to work at getting their provisions and other goods carried a little above the reach of the tide, and failing, because their

strength succumbed to the heat. I saw a man die there each day of the week out of 130, and at the end of three months only 90 of the total remained. The bones of the other 40 are there now. I have seen the grass grow there nine feet high in a few weeks, and sheep fed on it only weighed 101b, the quality of the feed was so poor. I do not write this to j seek to. terrify with what cannot be substantiated. There are others in New Zealand who were there at the same time as well as myself, and who had not the means of getting away from it at the time I came away, but stayed there until the Perth Government sent a steamer to bring the remainder away. Tbese could tell you many sad tales of their hardships—not hardships through want of provisions (because of those there was ample), but hardships brought about by thirst and heat. I cannot say whether there are rich goldfields there or not, or whether gold is easy to find or not, but this I can say, that for the working men of New Zealand Kimberley is no place, and you had better stay here with only such prospects of making a rise as the goldfields of New Zealand offer you. Why risk your health and lives in a country where perhaps your chances of securing wealth are quite as remote as they are here, and where, for every ten of you who go and stay there for any length of time five will stay there until the day of judgment, and one of the other five may return with plenty of the needful, but of the majority that will come back they will be poor specimens of the healthy sons of New Zealand they once were. In conclusion, I would say, " Take the advice of an Australian, and wait for the country to be opened up before you go. There is plenty of time, if the field is only half as good as it is represented to be.—l am, &c., D. J. Frazer. Te Aroa, June 9, 1886.