THE FITZROY GOLD FIELDS.

Colonist, Volume II, Issue 104, 19 October 1858, Page 3

THE FITZROY GOLD FIELDS.

The new diggings in the North (says the 171awarra Mercury') are attracting large numbers from Sydney, who are far too reckless. The information is not yet precise enough to justify a rush, and yet whole shiploads are rushing. They should have awaited the return of the first expeditions. Of the thing we can hardly yet form a judgment. One thing seems pretty certain, that the locality is excessively hot, very unhealthy, and subject to dangerous annoyances in the shape of poisonous insects, and of savage aborigines. It is but too probable that much human life will be sacrificed in the dangerous but tempting adventure. "We (Sydney Herald^ Sept. 22) have been favored with the following extract of a letter from Mr. Samuel Gearside, a passenger per Eagle, to his friends at Newtown, dated Port Curtis, Bth tember:-1-"We arrived tins evening all safe and right, after rather a long passage, but not to say a rough one, though we had a head wind nearly all the way. The news we have heard is quite astonishing. Port Curtis is nearly deserted, and all the cry is c off to the diggings.' I went ashore and fell in with two men just come down from the diggings. I-asked what news, and one (if them told. me he had made 22 ounces of gold in one week, and the other had done equally as well, in fact, he said there were nearly 300 men on the diggings, and he believed they were all doing well. The greatest difficulty was the want of water. They had come down to the port on purpose to buy a cart and horse each; their mates are behind on the diggings. Another man I was talking to is off with his wife and family; in fact, every one we meet is talking of nothing else but going off as soon as they can raise the ' possibles.' ~ A woman I met had got a letter from her husband. He had been away a fortnight, and she showed us the letter He says he had got £100 worth of gold in that time; and the best of it is, a man can get gold as soon as he reaches there, being only surface diggings. There has been no sinking as yet. If I had a cart I would get £25 for it. What 1 am writing now is what I have heard ; I cannot vouch for the truth of it; but no one we have met has had the least complaint. We saw Captain O'Connell, the head man of the port, and he gave us just the same account When 1 have been on the diggings three days I shall write you all news, and hope to be able to confirm what I have now written. ,You can show this letter to any one, and let them use their own discretion about coming here."