COOK TOWN AND THE PALMER.

Thames Advertiser, Volume VII, Issue 1799, 27 April 1874, Page 3

COOK TOWN AND THE PALMER.

The following is from n private letter of 24th March, published iii the Telegraph, Brisbane

■ "I left this town (Cooktown) seven weeks yesterday for the Palmer. Thero were about fifty men in the mob with us, travelling together on account of the blacks, who had been ploying up just, before. I took fifty pounds of tucker—" flour, tea, sugar, oatmeal, and cheesebesides my swag, pick, shovel, and dish. Thoweathor had been fine for a week, and everybody was making a start. Wo expected; by a new track, to make the diggings in about 120 miles. The news was good, only no tuckor to be had. I , did not care about starting until after the rains; but in hopes t that the rain might be all over, that thero would be tucker sent up after us, and as all the diggers in Cooktown were olearing out, I made a. start, too.

" Everybody was too heavily loaded, and it was a caution the first day or two to see the things that were thrown ' away. The weather was very hot, and for the first fifteen or twenty miles you might see blankets, coats, troupers, boots, flour ; sugar, salt, preserved spuds, and salt junk lying along the track. On the third day the rain commenced, and that afternoon wo found ourselves at the Normanby llivor (forty miles out) running a banker. We were four days before we got across—every day the mob getting bigger. When we got over, the river we thought the worst wis over, but found our mistake, for what with logs, creoks, and mountains, it took eight days more to make the Laura—another big river,., one hundred and ten miles from Cooktown. We ould not go over this river by any rueana; and as it had been raining—as it can rain only iu Northern Q leensland— for a fortnight, every night regularly, as well as sometimes in the daytime, we could neither get back to Cooktown nor up to the diggings. Our tucker was dons. There were 200 men in as miserable a 111 as ever could be. There were plenty of guns in the mob, but nothing m the shape of game to be had, so there was nothing for it but to b )il grass and eat tiiat, smoke tobacco (if you had any), and pray for the rain to knook off. Up to' this, we thought that if we could only make up to the diggings' we could, any way, get a little fbur to buy, and might battle through it some how. We stopped there five days. By. this time there was as big a crowd of man on the other side coming dowa, all with nothiag to eat except a horse, which hid biea ,icei legally drowned, and, as we ware nearly starved, everybody able to determined to mike back to Coo'ttown before he got too weak. We had nothing for about a week but .a little fbur. ,Oa, coming back we fo ml several creeks tiiatJwere no size as we went up were noiv a« big as rivers. \s it was Cooktown,or:, starve, wo pushed on, every one for himse If.

" I got in here after being twenty-seven days on the road. Some of our lot did not get in for nearly a week after. Suoh ja case, of hundreds of nm for days without a mirsel to eat, I never saw, anl hope never to see again. .Nearly all either lost their swags in the river, or from exhaustion had to throw themaivay. <om> get drowned, and some die! froni exhaustion. Some are dead, since they came in, from dyseutry,.cause J, [suppose, s ' by eating too freely after their famine.'

. . . There are'3,oos idle men camped here waiting till tliay know there are rations on the Palm jr. Phew are hundreds coming in every week, by steam and sailing vess'.ls of all descriptions, and in spite of doaens of-starving men coming flown every day, the new hands • start away all loaded Ike dinkeys with tools ar.d tucker. Men without horses are not a bit of use, as even with file weather no mm cin carry on foot more flour than will do him up and down. I do not know what it will end in, jbut I think there will be riots here soon, as men must eat. There is no work to be had here, and plenty came on with no more money thau would buy tools and tucker for the road. They did what they could, and were beaten.

" Nations in Oooktown are far dearerthan they were when we lauded. When there is freak beef to be liad, it is a shilliag a pound, boae and all, tab it or waat: it. Mutton is eighteen pence, but there is seldom any to be had. No drays can ' goto the Palmer, and what rations are < going up are carried by diggers with pack-horses, who hare left their mites on ' the diggings starring.'- There has been no baef on the diggings sinoe before Christ- , mas, and flour has nerer been less thin two shillings a paunikinful, and often fire shillings for that quantity. I, myself gare a horseman on tue Liura River tea shillings for two pannikins of flour. ,rhe same man got a new rifls, flask, ani shotbelt for nine pannikins of flour, from another of our party, who knew he had a hundred miles of fbode i country to get orer before he coul I get a feed. . . Two of the ' Young Australia's 1 passengers hare got drowned, and one died oa the range from carrying too hjary a swig. He had a bank reoaiptfor £L2J. . . Another mail was picked up dead on the road a few day* a,'o ab jut thirty-Are miles from here, with BH on him. Ho had £303 in tlie bank, besides a share in a quartz reef in Victoria; Plenty die on that road who are nerer heard of. I hare been trying hard for something to do, but it is no use. Alau are helping to discharge ships for their tucker.

" There are a good many, who have tho means, who are going bac<. As for myself, I am, like hundreds more, waiting till the wet is over to mike anotli ir start.Phero has been a lot of damaable lies sent south about the Palmer; but there is gild' there, and a man miy be able to mice a rise there by-and-by. ... Don't be impitient to hear from me igii i, as I ani like plenty mora here-iu a fix. . . . Men who ooms up in six mmths from this will stand a better show thau any min here at present who has no horse or means to get up. . " Oookto.vn, Vforoh 9,1874."