"Shicer" Goldfields.

Thames Star, Volume XI, Issue 3703, 6 November 1880, Page 5 (Supplement)

"Shicer" Goldfields.

For' some time past we have noticed extracts in our South African exchanges speaking in glowing terms of the richness of a supposed goldfield in Swazieland, and also in other outlying districts north of Cape Colony. These reports have not only attracted people in the. South African Colonies from their homes,, but also from. New Zealand, Australia, and elsewhere, and we feel it incumbent upon | us, to I publish; an extract frojn the Volkstem, kindly forwarded by Mrs J. Jennings, of this place, whose brother, Mr Dove, alluded to in the extract, is an old Thames man, having been formerly engineer at the Big Pump :—■" We have barely time to refer to the statement of the three diggers, Messrs G. Dove, Sumner, and Meadon, who have just returned from Swazieland, denying the Existence of rich .ggldfieids in that-' country. These men have no object in spreading false reports, they are very respectable men, as far as we can judge, and tell us that they have gone to Swazieland on behalf of many diggers on. the Diamond-fields to institute a;thorough and proper investigation. It is high time that the mischief done by sensational articles which have from time appeared in our local and other contemporaries be neutralised le|t more -time,^money, andj even If ye* be sacrificed* as^happwied the* last time when the Argus made such a fuss about the alleged rich finds at Spitskop. Messrs Sumner, Dove and Meadon are prepared to verify their statements by,«flidav-it if called upon to do so. TheyV state the Swazie King hasj permitted four white men to prospect for 50 years, and\|^at l^hpngh the prospectors were there only "six weelss, they'"wished" to leave. The result of their herculean labor under the broiling sun on Swazieland was a little more than half an ounce of gold dust." ' : . ; Another paper details the misfortunes of a New Zealander as follows:—Mr Kichard Weaver, a teamster of considerable means* who left Otago last April for the Cape of Good Hope has returned to Duntroon a wiser but a poorer man. His experiences since he set out for fresh fields and pastures new have not been happy. The only good thing about the Cape is its climate. The soil throughout his travels there/ extending 700 miles northward, is poor and hungry; the native grass is thin and wretched; neither wood nor water for a stretch of sometimes 100 miles; draught horses there are none worthy of the name, mules being used in their place; the bullocks on the roads are of no size or weight, and long spans of fourteen or sixteen may be seen creeping along with a little more than a ton behind them. All these evils were trying in the extreme to Mr Weaver, but the most exasperating of all was the Dutch element so apparent in the back country. Mr Weaver denounces Dutchmen as the meanest, stingiest, and most'intensely selfish of all the races of They would refuse a dripk of water although one's tongue 1 were Jianging a foot from one s mouth;: ani- in the; strongest, tersest language, Mr Weaver declared to our informant the .pleasure he would feel if he could shoot the lot:; The Cape Eailway Bill is;-thrown out; work there is none fc* white men, the darkies monopolising the labor market, or nearly so; and Mr Weaver declares the purchase ot land there is to be a delusion and a snare. Still, dissatisfied with the idea of retnrning to his beloved Waitaki without another attempt to retrieve his fortune,, Mr Weaver took ship" to bydney to venture a trial of tbe famed Tempra. mines;? Having sunk: two. shafts of 50 feet each/ and one of 340 feet, ' without getting the colour of gold, he sickened at the thought of prolonging his adventures, and put himself on board the first steamer for Dunedin, resolving to lay his bones m dear old New Zealand, the best oi all places he ever saw.