kIMBERLEY GOLDFIELDS.

Te Aroha News, Volume IV, Issue 175, 23 October 1886, Page 8 (Supplement)

kIMBERLEY GOLDFIELDS.

A further batch of disappointed diggers returned from Kimberley to Melbourne on €Sfe 11th mat. by the steamer Guthrie. They expressed great disappointment at the field and the results obtained. Extracts from a letter written by m digger to his relatives in Victoria show that up to the present the rush has been a complete failure, and that there is every possibility of distress prevailing among many ol those who have gone to the diggings. There were numerous accounts aa to what the blacks had done, but up to the present only one man had been lulled, and another wounded whom they met on the road back, It appeared that four or five men were working in a ravine, when five spears were thrown at them. One pierced the man who was killed to the heart, and the wounded man was grazed on * the forehead, the spear penetrating through his hat. All the diggers turned out the next day to hunt them up. They reported to the police that they had killed three or four, but it is supposed they shot all the blacks they came across. A Wellington telegram received today states that unsatisfactory reports from Kimberley are still being received. The following is an abstract from a letter written by D. McGrath, from Kimberley, to a friend at Wellington ;•— " There are men in scores starving, and no prospect but to starve. There is no gold getting, ani they have no money, ao there is nothing for them but t" starve right out. Ido hope that you won't be on the way here before this reaches you, and if you are not, don't ever come here. INo matter what kind of reports are in the papera.don't ever come here."