Transvaal Goldfields.

Thames Star, Volume XVII, Issue 5287, 30 December 1885, Page 2

Transvaal Goldfields.

\ The following is a report of a recent experience of the Transvaal gold fields :— " When returning to the colony a brief visit to the Transvaal goldfields proved to me that they can in no way be considered as a permanent mining industry. I visited the latest rashes—De Xuiaf and Duivel's J£autoor (Devil's Ofn>c)-rrand in both places the prospect was not encouraging, In the alluvial diggings the result at best was very patchy and uncertain. A little quartz crushing was going on with a primitive instrument called a "dolly/* but the miners there did not seem very hopeful. A certain Mr Benjamin, who had purchased mining concessions .in the neighborhood and formed a syndicate in London, was on the svc of coming to grief. The life was very hard, with the usual new rush price of provisions; and tha proverbial mining cabbage, or cauliflower, that fetched its weight in gold, &c, &c, were all to be seen, but I do not think there were many able to purchase them. A fearful scarcity of watei' prevails, the preoious fluid being brought in ships from a stream sorce. miles away, fetching about the same price that milk does in Melbourne; everybody looked hopeless gnd dirty, nobody washed, and I way gjad enough to get away. I remember the n^ht we left feeling outraged at the conduct of a cunning old Jtoer who lived near tbj? stream aod was

occupied in caning the water to the camp. Feeling intolerably thirsty we stopped at his house and begged him for a drink of water. Seeing we were strangers he pros duced a pot of stinking stuff which he declared was his entire supply of water, for which he demanded half a-crown. Bad as it was we drank it, bat about 100 yards further on our horses' feet splashed in the waters of tbe stream, so we went back and thrashed him, but did not recover the half-crown. So ended my experience of the goldfields (save the mark !) of the Transvaal."