NEWS FROM KIMBELEY.

Pahiatua Star and Eketahuna Advertiser, Volume 1, Issue 18, 10 August 1886, Page 4

NEWS FROM KIMBELEY.

(POST.) A gentleman in Wellington has kindly 1 allowed us to peruse two letters which t he received yesterday from men who l recently left this city for Derby. Both , the writers are steady, reliable, and trust- . worthy men, well known in Wellington. '1 he first, writing from Derby on the 23rd of last month, says : " I arrived here three days ago after a 1 very fine passage of 1H days from Sydney. Derby is a miserable place. There is i nothing but u few calico shanties there. The country around it for many miles is all a boggy swamp. The distance from here to the goldfield is 370 miles. I will go there in a couple of days’ time. The accounts from the diggings arc very ]>oor. It was shanty keejs-rs at Derby tiiat put all the good news in the papers. There is very little gold getting there, and every man there now must prospect for himself ; and if there arc no new finds the goldfields will be a failure, and there will he great hardship and starvation, as there is no employment to b< had within 1800 miles of the place, and there are no means to return. 1 hope 1 will succeed in getting a little gold; if not shall be badly oIT. Adv ise anyone you hear of leaving for here j to remain where they are at present." . The other letter is dated two days later, and is generally to the same effect, but the | writer mentions that he has met one of the original prospectors, who givis by no means an encouraging account of the liggings, saying there may be some gold ! found tin-re in the rainy season, when ! w ater will be available for washing, hut hat it will require four or five months to prospect the place. If the diggings turn our badly, there will be great distress, as there are hundreds of men without the means to return, and there is no employment of any kind to be obtained. Another letter received from a thoroughly practical digger, who rc- . cently left Wellington, lays that on ar- j rival in Derby he was terribly disap- | point d. So tar as he could learn, not an-re than stkl ounces in all had ever been received tin re from the diggings. Men wet*- pouring into the place, but few had 1 tile courage to proceed further ill the face j of the reports received. Horses, drays, iXe.. w ere as cheap in 1 lerbv ns in \\ ellingtoii. aStho.se arriving there wen- anxious j to dispose of llu-ir plant ill order to enable tin in to return without visiting the soealled diggings at all.