THE "COURIER" PROSPECTORS.

Lake Wakatip Mail, Volume II, Issue 98, 6 April 1864, Page 3

THE "COURIER" PROSPECTORS.

The narrative of the voyage of the "Fawn" to the West Coast of New Zealand, now appearing in the Daily Times, contains the following passage concerning the adventurous " Courier " prospecting parly : On the 23rd November, we were roused from rather a frugal dinner by the cry of "sail ho," and rounding the point a small boat carrying a lugsail appeared, bearing towards us. Various were our speculations as to the inmates on board. Some said it was Dr. Hector's boat, others pronounced it a Maori sealing boat: and at length, having examined her by the aid of a telescope, our final decision was that she was some ship's long boat with a cast-away crew. In consideration of the tremendous gale that we had ourselves experienced of late, and the quantities of broken spars that were drifting about the coast, this was by no means improbable. However, we ran up the ensign and gave them a welcome gun —the cook set to work to provide comforts for the inward man, and exclamations of sympathy sprung from every breast, commiserating the fate of the shipwrecked crew, and the hardships they had undoubtedly undergone. its the boat neared us, however, the ship's long boat turned into a dumpy, yet seaworthy little craft; the sea-chests turned into cradles, and the helpless, storm-stricken mariners into six prospecting miners, who, eight months previous had sailed from Dunedin in the schooner Courier, the pioneer of the supposed El Dorado in these parts. Their clothes were perfectly anti-typical of Joseph's 44 coat of many colors," and for want of leather soles to their hoots they had acquired a taste, not altogether a la mode de Paris, but that of the campagnards, or rural laborers of Southern France—that is, they had substituted wood, an excellent contrivance, and much more durable than might be anticipated. They had migrated from Bligh Sound to Milford Sound, leaving the former on the 12th and the latter on the 21st of this month. Besides these localities, they had entered numbers of the inlets which occur in that excessively broken portion of the coast between Milford Sound and the West Cape. The adventurous spirit of the early navigators has been justly eulogised by the generations that have succeeded them, and benefited by the results of their arduous labors, but although only acquainted with the general property of the magnetic needle, that invaluable instrument was their guide and mainstay in the dark and starless night; but the adventurous journey of the Courier party had been accomplished without the aid of a compass, and only assisted by a vile chart, by Wild of Charing Cross. They have entrusted themselves to the perilous sea of this hostile coast, endured the rigors of winter, and borne up cheerfully on barely the necessaries to an existence, and unfortunately after having prospected in so many places have failed to secure any gold According to their account the quantity of rain that has fallen during their stay has been something enormous. Every day of July last was rainy, all the days of October, with the exception of one, and sometimes the fall resembled tropical floods, or as they themselves described it, "as coming down in bucket fulls." The earthquake which was felt in Dunedin and most of the inhabited parts of the island in August last, was felt by them as a severe shock, its effects lasting six minutes.