TO THE KIMBERLEY GOLDFIELD AND BACK. A Disappointing Trip. Hardships in the Search for Gold.

Te Aroha News, Volume IV, Issue 171, 25 September 1886, Page 4

TO THE KIMBERLEY GOLDFIELD AND BACK. A Disappointing Trip. Hardships in the Search for Gold.

The special correspondents of the Sydney papers who wererdespatched to Kimberley have Bent long descriptive letters to the journala they represent, and they concur in pronouncing the field a failure. The correspondent of the " Sydney Telegraph," writing from Port Darwin on August 10,8&ya:>— After reading the glowing accounts in the papers, I and two friends decided to try our luck at Kimberley. Early in April we found ourselves in King Sound, well equipped with horses, provisions and guns, a rifle for the blacks and a gun for game. IWe anchored about eight miles from the so-called jetty, arid u v waiting for the dootor, we were at last landed on the mud, the jetty being of .little use owing to the tide, which has a fall here of 36 feet. It was sad work getting our horsea and goods on land. Tucking our trousers up to the knee, we commenced operations. > The horses sank girth deep, and two got so bogged that we had to pull them out with ' ropes, and as for the goods, we carried them on our heads. It took a considerable time to accomplish this, and, when comploted, we looked more like blacks than white men. The tramway, which runs about two miles over the mud flats, is a 'most miserable affair, rails of all sorts and sizes, some iron, others wood, laid on sleepers in all shapes ; and aB for Derby, a more wretched-looking place does not exist in Australia, surrounded as it is on all sides with mud flats. It contains two hotels — " The Kimberley Arms" and " The Dsrby" — three stores, and a baker, who is a woman. The only thing in its favour is a good well, near which we camped for a short time to rest our horses. There is a little scrub, consisting of borab, gums, and tea-trees, very tall grass, which soon got all burnt, as some parties were never contented unless setting fire to the grass. We had little use for our guns—-no blacks to shoot, and very little game. When we had recovered ourselves, after the voyage, we started for the field. The country is flat and well watered ail the way, with plenty of feed, but having to cut a road in several places, itf took us about six weeks to reach it. Upon our arrival, the diggers seemed surprised to see ue, and could not understand men coming to a place where there was no gold to be found. < On our way up we saw the blacks several timee, and on two occasions, when we camped near a waterhole, they endeavoured to burn us out by setting fire to the grass, which in places was from, 6 to 12 feet high, and would make splendid fires ; during the night the country was one mass of fire, and in the day clouds of emoke. We came upon six blacks one day, one of whom had a double barrel gun, which is supposed to have belonged to a man who has been reported missing. The field bad a moßt barren look, rough and stony, »iO3t part covered with spinifex grass. As far as we were able to tell it appeared to consist of conglomerate quartz, with siate on end underneath. We found our picks and Bhovels ot no use; a big knife was all that was required, and to all those csming up I would advise to bring brooms. We looked more like hens scratching for worms than miners, as there is no deep sinking or pegging out claims. We tried Hall's Creek, where gold was first found, and then made for McPhees camp, which we found to be the largest, and fvotn there mad* for Hall's Gully, out of which we weie told 28oz of gold had been taken. It appeared to us very strange that the three men who first feund gold gave up the job, one goincr in as butcher in Derby, another as a policeman, and the other for sheepshearing. We found eeveral men on the field who had been there since December, and had found but little gold, but all, more or less, had touches of fever aqd ecurvy. These old diggers, instead of keeping things back, told the truth about' the tield, and that is that the field does not contain payable gold and will not sustain more than 200 men. Sergeant Troy was there, and if his report is only publiehed —the good as well as the bad —it will go far towards stopping the rush which will only end in misery and loss to a great number of men. Provisions were cheap on the field, and very little distress until the swagmen arrived, and the men with barrows from the Derby side, of whom six not safe to the field. It was amusing to see, day after day. teams and horses arrive loaded with moat unsuitable things. One of our party was an old digger who had been in all the rushes in New Zealand, Victoria, and on the Palmer, and he said he had never seen the like of this field—no drinking, fighting, singing, not even gold to be found. One party alone, consisting of eight men who had arrived in December, had just' cleared their expenses, and were disgusted witn the whole affair. One man declared he would rather go to prison than stay another month. It is all very well saying that all are finding a little gold, but when it costs £8 to find £4 worth of gold it is not worth while to stay any length of time. After staying three weeks we found numbers of men making back to the coast, They vere ewagmen, numbers of whom came up with money and just sufficient tucker to last them for a few days. They expected to find gold and then to buy provieions, but as there was no gold to be found, they were next to etarving and fitcrbed back begging food the beet way' they could. ; It was only guily-raking, and one well* known digger said that with a broom and ahovelhe would get on very well ; we gofc a little gold' which was rugged and did not' appear co have travelled very far T but experienced miners gay it must have done so, as no reef* Of any good have been'found anywhere ne'ai? the field. Old miners 'say that there are" indications of payable reefs within a hundred miles of the present field.' (The opinion on the field is thafc f' owing to' the heavy tropical rain which only comes once a year, thri gold 1b brought down with a'Vueh, and gots lodged in crevices and behind boulders', or else is washed out to eea. Anyone - who has been <!»tt the field 'will" understand this, as the hills are washed bare of soil and haye 1 the Japffearah^e' 'of having been quarried," and the groWd*' on/"slopes Jand* 'bottom of the gullies is composed ,of'stories 'varying7in feiae j.'hefe'an'd> therein a ltttlo depth of'soil, but then no water is near. One 1 man I l}BjMr iforryine asack full of soil fromone^'of th'e^e spots l to a^atei -hole two* mil«8 * a'way> X* ;dld?: WjotonW''toree timea;^b'ut leacH^ime fHe t)aia ni n l6t"*hav^ ;the\Qi>tyui: 6f u g6ld bin^fcie • sable;^o'gave 'up Vthe job and'Vkttft^totokf 1 W ine coast.. All the men oh the' field worked .hanyffor. :! *J [they p saidf .After* 1 comfWg ,frW tousarias' Smites >they^tiSatfr 'coifctry.*'^dlt^ViiV^tel/^Hfri^thelr

proviaipha^ began to fail them and their hbrse^v^ore loet or speared by the blacks that £hey decided -tcrmftke/forvthe coast"againr Several who had touches of fever and scurvy started ' down whenever ' they satf'a chanfee. There was one Bad 1 case of amah -who had arrived in December,'ahd who had succeeded in obtaining! about < one pound < weight of gold.' He had" Bourvy^ and ( ( fever, antl started down with two or three horses and provisions.-' Some swagmen ' who started with him promised to look after him, in return for which he allowed them the use of his horses and also found 1 them with food <A- few days-j ourney from' the field he was fouhdjdead; having shot himself, putting his rifle to his head, and pulling the trigger with his foot. 1 - One of the men who was sleeping about a hundred yards from him said he heard the report of the gun, but did not trouble himself about it until the next morning. We never heard, what became of his money. A mafl's life is riot counted much in this part. We had riot much trouble with the blacks. One man was speared and another, wounded, upon which the miners turned out, and having followed the blacks up, gave them a lesson by reducing their number ; but we were told by the magistrate at Derby that if a black throws a' spear at you, you must run away and not fire at him, as you know what you are doing, whereas a poor 1 black does not. But such advice was not followed. Some new chums seemed disposed to fire at every black they came across, but up to the present time the blacks content themselves by spearing a few horses and keeping out of sight. There have been several horses lost lately, and numbers died ,on the road, owing, I believe, to the poison bueh ; but so far we have not found the bush. •»> The first man who arrived 1 on the field with a spring cart from Wyndham was A. Fitzpatrick,' and came up in the Gambier from Mackay. He started with O'Donnell and party, but found them too slow, and pushed on by' himßelf, following McPhees track. It took some 23 days to get to the field; and was quite five days ahead of any of the rest. - He found the road very bad, and judging from the state of his cart it must have been so ; it wae so knocked about that it was not fit for' use. After being on the field for a day or two he sold his cart for £2 to a TQan whu made it into a cradle. Provisions and horses now came down in price, as numbers were coming in daily from Wyndham. Carr-Boyd arrived with his party, but he seemed in bad books with the miners, some of whom talked about shooting him. He only Btayed" a short time and then went back to Wyndham. O'Donnell brought his party up all safe, and was a favourite with the men, although all say that McPhee is the beat man. It was he who found the road at first, and all the others have done is to cut off corners. The road at firat must have been about 220 miles, but is much shorter now, as eevyral men have done it walking in 12 days. There was only one party on the field who had just cleared their expenses, and.they had arrived before last rainy season, and up to the present had obtained about 2400z3. among eight. About July 25th, we left the field with several old miners,' who pronounced it no good whatever until next rainy season, and even then they said that the country would not keep more than 100 men, as there ir no payable' gold nor any indications of such for 100 miles around, A party of four came down for a rest, and intended going up again to prospect the country between the present field and Porb Darwin to see if payable reefs cannot be found. , The country on the Wyndham side appears to be an alternation of ridges and hollows, stony and spinifex grasp, clothed in some parts with poor, scrubby timber, but, as a rule, barren, desolate-looking country, with high hills of a red colour without the slightest vegetation, which looked as if they had been quarried. On our way down we overtook numbers of men, all making for the coast, several of whom had lost their horses from eating the poison bush, which appears to be plentiful on this route, as there is a stretch of it for about 60 miles, and then it is Dot found until about four mileß from Wyndham. The paper leaf tree is met with all along this route, and we always found water near it. Some say that there are tin and Black Jack to be found on this route as well aB black Baud and tourmaline, but there is no doubt as to red and grey granite being found about SO miles from Wyndham and for some distance. We found the heat very great coming down, whereas on the field night and morning it was very cold, and during the day not too warm. That was during the cold season ; but on our way down it was rather too hot to be pleasant, and the flies were terrible The oldest visitor said he had never found the flies so bad. Several had their eyes swollen with fly-blight. There was a iair amount of distress on the road. One or two died. There were also three graves ; one was, by a paper notice put up on a tree, that of a man named Graham, from Sandhurst ; the others had no notices. Water was plentiful, and so would feed have been had it not been burnt. We heard of a party of three, one of whom shot himself in the hand, and so had to be left behind, and, owing to haVing no doctor, soon died and was buried. Snakes were plentiful on the road, but did not seem to hurt anyone. They were black, some large and others small, and any quantity of ante, .lizards, and others of the creeping " kind. There was also a kind of a kangaroo rat, which had a bushy tail and would climb trees. I paw several, hop about like a kangaroo, and would afterwards climb a tree like a cat ; they were good eating. The lizards were good to eat, although I never tried one, but on ore or two occasions' when hard up for food felt inclined to do so, but fortunately managed to phoot some quail, which were plentiful. The miners made sad havoc x among the cockatoos; having wounded, a bird, and let it He on tbo ground, the others would come near, it arid ho dozens could be shot in a very short time, but after a little thoy began to be wiser and left their dead comrades alone. , „ r \ We arrived at Wyndham on August 1, j and camped at the three miles where there is a well of good drinking water, but a very dirty camping ground. As regards the road down, it is much shorter than the Derby one, equally as good for horses, but not so flat, .and therefore not. bo good for drays ; but still tWroad 'it quite passable for drays, and we met three bullock teams going up wh'p will improve the traclc v We were disappointed with Wyndham, having heard 60, much abovtt it on the field. In fact, Derby is a betterplace to Jive, in, and that is, bad enough. ' Wyndham ifl a terribly hot place, and stands on a bit of land at, the c foot of a range of .hills with the river in front "and mud flats' on each side, which art covered at* spring tide 1 ?- tb'ere ,1^ no vegetation and no water fit t'6 Srlnk, although they ' have .tried to> sink forborne. You, have'tx)'pay;6d ( per bucket for water, whbh ! is bVoughc frbWthV'th'ree-mUe'camp/, and 'alto I * M aW &\\s*6M<>d *m v , TT e ;, 'new township 4 Which has been surveyed is ab'out'two to thVed^milesayray, on the side of We ri^i?.ut;up|» r the:prwent;( August 2nd) l ;ti6' f one baa put' any buildingr on it. » a tbWnWip;^ tho'dwp; wfrterLelofe %? it ;Aa, large Seattle*; SltflttchO^Withta iOO yafda;

the Llndjt -^'TOea'wVOTrived at Wy*ndham, thinga opked very bad, the etorekgep&rs doing 10 beef at 3d per lb. No steamer in the Gulf except the TagUaferfS; whiqh was going to. Melbourne via Perth; and Wted £10 steerage, but as moat of bur men came from Queensland they: did notcareto go* rbu^d Australia to get home ; so we chartered * small- icraft^ called' the* >£irida Wetter' from New Zealand, to take us, 69 men one woman and two children, to Port' Darwin 1 " in nope, that when reaching that port wi might get a steamer south. We paid the captain £2 per head, and were to be "on board, by 10 a.m. on Tuesday, August 5, which we did,, and with us two or three stowaways. We left Wyndham noon after 10.30 a.m. Not a cheer "was given, but several curses at the men who had given false, news of, the rush. 'It look us four 'days to reach. Port Darwm. We had a man and his wife and two children cm board* from New Zealand, who had been brought over by false news, and no money to carry them home again. We did what we could to niake them comfortable, .but on a , little craft as we were and bo crowded, the poor women had a most unpleasant time. > After waiting in Port Darwin fora day, or two, the ft.s. Airlie came in, and about 50 went on board, bound for their various homes ; the remainder bad to stay at Port Darwin, as they had no money r to take them away, and among these were men who had, ( arrived at Kimberley with three or four horses and money, but their horses, had died of eating the poiso'u bush or hm'i been speared by the blacks, and ac for r.heir money they had to spend it, in buying food. Such ends my experience of Kimberley gold-rush, which is one of the biggest frauds which have taken place for a long time. When we left Wyndham there were numbers of men waiting to come away but who had no money to pay their fare, and there were men who had lost their horses and left their drays behind, some on the field and others broken down on the road side. .Good hortes were selling for £5 lOswi'h paddle ; poor animals would go for about £4 each. There was X great amount of misery at Wyndham» numbers ot men wanting work, and who would take 6a a day if they could get it. The reports ac to men getting £1 per day are all wrong. There was a report in Wyndbam (put about by a man who had gone south in the B.s. Hero) as to gold having been found to a large amount within 60 miles of Wyndham, Thie report waa proved to be untrue, and like many others, made up by people who have aa interest in sending men to lose their money and then starve at Kimberley. Whatever the field may be in six or 12 months 1 cannot say, but up to the present it is a fuilure, an,d is not fit for any but a few old diggers to prospect. When we left Wyndham we left the Notero, from Auckland, N. Z. She had arrived with stores, &c. ; but owing; to the bad state, of things would not land them,