A NEW ZEALANDER ABROAD.

Temuka Leader, Issue 2154, 24 January 1891, Page 3

A NEW ZEALANDER ABROAD.

Mr Prank D. Lockwood, formerly of Canterbury, writing to a Christchurch friend under date Capetown, November stb, 1890, says“ A new goldfield is being opened up about 1600 miles north of Oaptown, and I am off next month. There is a railway for the first six hundred miles, and then we have to take to the oxwaggon for the remainder. The rate of progress with a waggon and load of two tons and eighteen oxen is about ten miles per day on the average, or 300 miles a month. Of course it is terribly tedious travelling under such circumstances, but the sandy nature of the soil, together with feed, upon which no horse ceuld exist, obliges everyone to employ oxen. The scene of operations is Mashonaland, north and east of the Transvaal. Although no great distance from the Equator the altitude is some 4500 feet above sea level, so that the heat is notunbearable. There is a good supply of wood and water at all seasons, which is an exception to nine-tenths of the entire continent. The wealth reported to be undeveloped by celebrated travellers and miners who have gone through this hitherto hostile country will put in the shade the old days of Ballarat, Bendigo, and California. I am going up with the intention of trying to make a living. A railway is’in progress right up the country, but will take two or three years to complete* Our party consists of five and two waggons, and we are well provided with rifles, guns, and revolvers, for shooting big or little game or hostile blacks, Although there is a beautiful climate, the Cape Colony is the most joyless place in existence, and there are no places of amusement whatever. We should both like to come and look you up again, as life in Mew Zealand is Paradise compared to Capetown, but I shall defer it until we can appear upon the scene better off than when we left it.”