THE NORTHERN GOLD COUNTRY.

Westport Times, Volume VI, Issue 1017, 29 October 1872, Page 3

THE NORTHERN GOLD COUNTRY.

We get at last some tangible evidence of the auriferous resources of Northern Australia. The ' Sydney Empire' has investigated the subject, and concludes to fall back upon that high authority, Marco Polo, the gossippiug and adventurous Venetian who found his way to the Court of Kubla Khan, and had the honor of commuuicating to Europe full particulars of Prester John. It says — : "It is, in our opinion, a reasonable conclusion to draw that the Port Darwin territory is part of the country described by Marco Polo under the name of Locban. He visited Sambawa, or Lesser Java, in the year 1293, and there heard of a great country of a wild and desolate character called Lochau situated at a distance of about 750 miles to the south-east of Sambawa, where the people were savages, and ' where gold was abundant to a degree scarcely credible,' It was in all probability owing to this statement in Marco Polo's travels that traditions and ideas respecting a great South Land, rich in gold, became prevalent in Europe several centuries since, and which were so thoroughly believed by the prisoners and others who arrived by ' the first fleet' in 17S8 that many of them perished in their attempts to reach the auriferous region." Poor old Marco Polo ! We shall have many wonders if all his statements are to be accepted as Holy Writ. There are the rocs who dwelt in Madagascar, and whose feathers measured 90 spans. He saw one of these —perhaps at the same place that he heard of the Roper nuggets. Then there were the Thibet mastiffs, which were bigger than donkeys, and the Sumatra unicorn, which licked men to death with its prickly tongue, and the inhabitants of the Andamans, upon whose shoulders grew dogs' heads instead of men's; and it is Marco Polo who is responsible for the lines in Hudibras, that " Chinese go to bed, And lie in in their ladies' stead." There have been gold rushes on less authority than Marco Polo's tales, but perhaps that rather tells against the rushes.