HOLIDAY TOUR IN THE SOUTH ISLAND.

Manawatu Herald, Volume I, Issue 65, 10 April 1879, Page 2

HOLIDAY TOUR IN THE SOUTH ISLAND.

(lIY AN F.iCUU?IOXt3T.) Qieeiuto.vn lies in a snug little bay out of tile oourij of th» win Is w'lio'i ocdiudiially s>e-)|j dp an I dow.l fie Likj, an.t is a dmt UfcLlo p1.103 With vmj libtb of tllit biutlo an. l eajrgy w'lioh g mar illy characterise Cjloaial town* I r .s diy ai a business plane appears to h ive passed, as tha gold digijin^a in its immeJiato vicinity hive been ' woriteJ out ; there is, of ourdi}, so.iv little ' business elding with the di^gi'igs afc the Arrow anl t!lj Sliot-jrer, a:ul tli.j nu-über of tourists Who visit these ro.nantio sjenoa all help to add grist to thi Queeustowa mill ; still, you cannot call it a busy plaou. The town bo.ists one newspaper— tho Wakatip M iil— a wjekly jour.ial. Msny of tho builliiijs in tho town are of stone, and a few of bric'.cj the stono used i 3 quarried ljcilly, and is of rather a peculiar character, being more of the nature of slate t and appears to have been fonnsd in thin layers< Some that L noticed in walking along tho Arrow Road was of a very soft and friablo nature, and unless better than this 13 obtainable I could not commend their building stono Vory highly. I enjoyed a walk for a short distance down tlio road to the Arrow, which follows tho course of the Kawarait River; this river is the only outlet the Lake has, and at tlio point where it leaves the Lake is very broad indeed, its width gradually lessening until it assumes more ordinary propirtions. The Kawarau River is a tributary of the Clutha, tho Olutlia River itself rising in Lakes Wunaka and Hawea. It need hardly be a matter of surprise, therefore, that in a wet season, and wlien the snow melts, tho Clutha should bo liable to heavy floods ; indeed, it could scarcely be otherwise, when it is remembered that the surplus waters of these three largo Lakes, besides the drainage of about 300 miles »F hilly country, all find their way to the sea over its bed.

HOMEWARD MOUND.

I now commenced my journey homewards, embarking on board the p.s. Antrim at 7 o'clock in the morning. As the return journey was over the same ground I have already describsd, it will be unnecessary to remark further upon it ; suffice it to say that on a Friday evening I found lnysslf once more comfortably ensconced in the hotel at Dunedin. Saturday was at ray disposal, and I had my choice as to whether I should visit the Mosgiel Woollen Factory or the Tunpeka Gold Diggings on that day. Gold diggings being to me a greater novelty, were more to my liking on this occasion, so on Saturday morning, at half-past sevon, I took train at Dunedin station en route for Lawrence. We traversed the main line towards Invercargill iv far as Olarksville, the first station beyond Milton, the remainder of our journey lying off the main line, up tho Tuapeka branch. The carriages on thin branch line are of rather an 01.l fashioned style, and were made by Fiudlay, of Dunedin. The d jors are ut the sides, and not at the ends, and .the seat runs round the ends and up the sides as far aa the doors, the centre of the carriages baing carpeted. This branch line crosses the Tokomairiro Plains at right angles to the raaiu line, aad after running two or three miles through rich corn-producing country, gets in amongst the hills, and affords the most highly-ma* tured specimens of steep grades and sharp curves that it fell to my lot to view. Still, I do not consider that it at all surpasses the Wellington line in this respect. This Tuapeka country is very rough, and not particularly beautiful to look upon, as it lacks that gorgeous clothing of bush, whieti contributes so highly to the boautificatiou of the Wellington hilly scenery. The rivers and streamlets, too, which with us would be a3 clear as crystal, are here merely mud gutters, running down hardly anything but miners' "tailings." After pursuing our tortuous journey in and out of those hills for about 20 miles, wo came upon a small extent of slightly flatter land, and the town of i-iawrence, which is the centre of this mining district, and the county town of Tuapeka County. Lawrence is not a large place, nor is it a particularly picturesque spot; it is, howover, vastly superior to a good many County towns that I have seen, and appears to be in a prosperous condition. I visited tho celebrated Gabriel's Gully, now only worked by a few Chinamen, and the far-famed Bluu Spur, where extensive operations are curried on. At the Blue Spur tho gold is found in a material resembling cement, of which there appears to be a very vait deposit, and the miners find this cement becomes richer the nearer they get to the bottom of it ; it thorefora follows that their principal endeavors are spent in getting out thii bottom stuff. One claim I visited had been bottomod out to the full extent of their boundary, in the direotion in which they had been working, and the men were engaged in driving a tunnel at a very considerable inclination in another direction, to open up fresh stuff. I wai invited to iaspeot the works in this tunnel, and accepted the invitation. It was about 4 feet in width, and barely high enough to stand upright in, and so steep was the descent into the earth that considerable care had to be exercised to enable you to keep your foothold. However, we got down all right, and found two men at work there preparing to blast. The work that these men were engaged upon seemed to be an exceedingly slow, tedious task j they were driving holes in the solid content, into which the charge would be placed ; and there they were, sitting on the ground, pounding into a half-made hole with a kind of long steel spike, which broke up the stuff at the bottom a little, and which was thon brought to the surface — about a salt spoon full at a time — by means of a long steel rod with a small receptacle something like a spoon tunnd up at the bottom. This tunnel was here and there timbered to keep it from falling in, but on noticing these sup* ports it seomed to me that there were not nearly enough of the-n, if the stuff was at all liablo to fall ; hence, I gently interrogated my guide as to whether those tunnels ever fell in, and experienced considerable aiarm when ho replied," Oh yes, frequently;" and as those men were just then getting ready to blast, you may imagiue I spent very little more time in examining the workings there, but speedily gained the surface, where I once more breathed freely. Tlut these workings do fall in I afterwards had proof, for I was shown a place that had been entirely hollowed out underneath, and had subsequently fallen right in. The gold-bearing cement is drawn up these tunnels to the surface in trucks, each containing about half a ton, and is then run along a tramway up to the battery, where it is crushed. The crushing is an exceedingly noisy operation, and it was very difficult work indeed for my guide to explain t'ae modus opsranii with such a din going on. It seems, however, that the gold « bearing material is placed in a largo sort of trough, whence it finds its way to the stampers, and is ground to powdor Here a stream of water is poured upon it, and the whole is washed away from the machine ; it then runs over a series of quicksilvered plates, the gold adhering to the quicksilver, and the dirty water running away. Water U an indij-

po:iaabie requisite iil gold mining, and wboro a suubient quantity is not found on tlio spob, a race, or aqueduct, has to be constructs J to tho nearest point where a supplj is to ba obtained. Tlieso races ara frequently ten; and sometimes as much as twenty miles iri lengthi drourtd sluicing has been given up at tho Blue Spur on account of the difficulty in getting rid of the tailings ; ray friend in» form ad ui3 that when they commenced operations at their claim, they were 100 feet abjve the bottom of the gully, but when w'd we're there they ha 1 filled the gully right up, ani had 'uud to construct a tail race of considerable length, with hardly aiiy fill, to get rid of the tailings from the machine, liut when ground sluicing was the order of the diy with them, they used to do it on an extensive sca'o ; Uiey did ujt go in for mere hand fills of stuff, but put ill charges of two tons of piwder, aid brought away a whole hills' 1 tb at a linv3. The consequence was tlut this utuff got very imperfectly W.islied, and a number of Chinamen hare obtained tne right to re-sluice these tailings, and it ia expected that they will maka a very p.ofitable thing of it. The battery which 1 inspected was, I believe, a 20-hoad one, and was capable of putting through about 250 tons of stuff daily, and tiie average yield of gold was from 600 to 700 ounces monthly ; it will, therefore, be seen that the yield of gold to the ton is not at all a large one, aud yet these people make that claim pay handsomely. I was unfortunate on the day I yisited the diggings, as it came on to rain quite heavily, and we were wholly unprepared for it ; and the best wrapper I could borrow on the ground teing a sack, I attired myself in that, and trudged off back to Lawrence. Here we once more embarked in the train, and got into Dunedin after rather a loner and fciriag day's exploits. My journey from Dunadin homewardi revealed but little that I had not perceived in going down, so I will not lira your readers with a repetition of my experiences : suffice it to say that the whole of my journeyings only oooupied a little more than three weeks, and that during that time I travelled upwards of 1,500 miles. The trip is a grand one, and as, a resort for tourists who have only a limited time at their disposal, it will not be easily mrpassed. The principal thing that strikes your, mind after seeing so large an extent of land under cultivation, and even a larger extent only awaiting the impottation of additional labor to bring it under tillage, is, what a vast proportion of all this progress aud prosperity the Country owe 9to the Immigration and Pnblic Works Policy ; and seeing the beneficial effeots of the Bohemo, so far, I say, and say it heartily, too— push forward our Colonial railway works until _ all the agricultural land in f.he country shall be connected with the centres of popu« lation and shipping ports, for only by the permanent settlement of our waste lands will lasting prosperity be secured to us. Our Southern neighbors have certainly been more highly favored than we have in the matter of railway communication, prinpally owing to the comparative ease vritU which railways could be constructed there ; but in point of climate and richness of soil I think many Northern localities could successfully vie with the Southern plain lands, and when our means of communication are only as complete as theiis are— or will be when lines now in progress, or con' templnted, are made — then the work of '„ settlement in the North Island will indeed ' go on apace.