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the prospects of the mild winter on the West Coast, with its inexhaustible forests, presented such favourable contrast to the severe continuous cold and the violent snowstorms in the sub-alpine country of Otago, where there is great scarcity of firing, that it served as an additional incentive to migration. Quite eight thousand gold-diggers set out from Otago for the New Eldorado. Towns like Queenstown and Kingston, on the Wakatipu Lake, soon stood almost entirely deserted, and the few inhabited houses sheltered for the most part the female part of the population, who only waited for decided news from the West Coast to follow their husbands with their children. Houses, which a few months before could not be bought for less than several hundred pounds, were got rid of for a trifle. Strange to say, in just the same feverish haste, these very people hurried away from the place (the West Coast) to which they had so lately come through numerous privations and dangers."* The writer is here speaking of the contingent of Otago, which reached the West Coast at the time stated in the above extract; but no one will believe that without good reasons these men abandoned the field they had so lately sacrificed so much to reach. Some, indeed, returned to Otago, but as a matter of fact the great bulk of them remained on the coast— a fact that may be attested by the presence of the miners on the coast at the present time. Such men were not of that class who lightly yield to difficulties even under a considerable amount of hardship and discouragement. It was the non-practical and inexperienced, recruited mainly from the Canterbury eastern district, who constituted the bulk of those who returned without having given the field a fair trial, or proved aught except their own unfitness for the work they had undertaken. Dr. yon Haast himself makes this sufficiently clear when, further on in the report which has just been quoted from, he says, " Whoever is acquainted with life on the goldfields " —which, by the way, Dr. yon Haast was not—" will understand that, with the gold-diggers proper, the whole population which follows in their train immediately departed. Not only the storekeepers and packers, artisans, and publicans, but also the demi-monde, sharpers, and idlers of every kind, resembling marauders who follow an army, moved like a living stream through the country." It might be inquired, if under any possible circumstances the population of Christchurch, or the more respectable part of it, were shifted to a new and more salubrious situation, would not those classes which have been mentioned by name as following the migrating diggers also forsake their haunts in the old Christchurch to maintain or better their fortune in the new town ? Assuredly such would eventuate. But no doubt the good people of Canterbury were occasionally shocked at what they had sight of, shall we say, for the first time. Dr. yon Haast's narrative continues thus:— " In the meantime the gold fever had not only attacked the population of the Otago Province ; all New Zealand, and even the Australian Colonies, were more or less affected, and numerous steam and sailing vessels unloaded their living freight on the formerly desolate West Coast. Thousands of men who, in consequence of their usually sedentary lives, were the least fitted to bid defiance to the elements, to carry heavy burdeus on their backs, and at the same time put up with scanty and bad food, would not be warned, but followed in pursuit of the gold which, as report said, was so easy to obtain. The clerk left his desk, the artisan his workshop; even doctors, lawyers, and merchants, whose sphere of action was not quite what they desired, preferred to give up their professional position and domestic life in pursuit of the uncertain wealth in the distance. As a matter of course, most of these people returned without having attained any results, while many, terrified by the mountain torrents, and being, to their advantage, soon sobered down, came back again when they had scarcely gone half way " On the 29th of March I left Christchurch with three horses and accompanied by three men; the weather was glorious, as it nearly always is in the latter part of our summer, not a cloud in the deep blue sky, and travelling was pleasant and easy, as a well-made road only a few miles distant from the sea-coast leads from the capital for thirty miles north to the Waipara. What stirring life was on the road ! Wagons of all kinds came and went, bringing provisions and other goods to the Waitohi Gorge, where the wagon-road ends. An endless train of gold-diggers with packhorses, packers driving horses before them, and even women walking stoutly along by the sides of their husbands, and often leading packhorses, all going to the new El Dorado. Travellers on foot with heavy packs on their backs, and shovels and pickaxes in their hands, were also there, many of them already having come several hundred miles. It was easy to see from their appearance that most of them were accustomed to such journeys with their accompanying privations and hardships ; but an experienced traveller could easily descry among them single groups whose outfit and appearance showed at once that they were novices, and hardly in the condition to bear the fatigues before them " The traveller could not help being especially struck here with the feverish movement of a population hastening to a newly-discovered goldfield. Many of the diggers and storekeepers who had brought loaded wagons from Otago, in the belief that they could take them at least to the foot of the saddle which leads over the central chain, were now obliged to leave them behind, and take their stores on with packhorses. Many large wagons were therefore sold for a trifle, while others which did not immediately find a buyer were simply left behind. And what a busy active life was here to be seen ! Everywhere tents and camp-fires, around which several hundred persons were encamped, most of them making preparations for continuing their journey, and often speaking in different languages, English being of course predominant. During the whole of the afternoon, and late in the evening, travellers kept arriving As I observed the different groups, I could not help noticing, in spite of the commotion and the noise, how very earnest the people were. There was very little drinking, and still less singing; each one was too much occupied with putting up tents, cooking, and especially with his preparations for the journey, and was thinking no doubt at the same time of the difficulties before him. At the Waitohi Gorge I met several parties of diggers who were on their way back to Christchurch, not being able to endure the hardships of the journey ;

* " Geology of Canterbury and Westland," p. C 6.