THE PALMER.

Thames Advertiser, Volume VII, Issue 1875, 27 July 1874, Page 3

THE PALMER.

The Bimedin Qurdlun publishes a letter from the Palmer received there by a gentleman formerly resident on tlio Thames from his brother. We make the following extract :— "Oooktown, Endeavour River, "June 2,1874 " Jly Dear Brother,—Here we are once more, safe and sound in Oooktowu, after having been away over a month on the road and at the .Palmer; and now we are waitiug for the arrival ot a steamer to take us away from this never, never-to-be-forgotten place, Charley and I, and two other steady digger-chaps, shipmates of ours, bought a quiet, stroug little mare for £17 175., loaded her with 2001b. of tucker, and took ourselves 501b. each of us on our backs, and started for the Palmer diggings on 28th of April, after having bean delayed nearly four weeks in toivu by the heavy rains. We reached the Upper Diggings, Left-hand Branch, in 10 days, 130 miles, after having travelled over some very rough country, all safe sad well. The road, taken as a whole, is not so bad as is made out, considering the country it passes through; although there are some very dangerous places on it for pack-horses. I lie lower road is passable for teams, but is over 200 miles to the lower Diggings. We had no trouble with the mare, saw no natives on the way, and had plenty of company, with large camp* at night. Hundreds goiug up, and the same coming down, with vory bad accounts: tucker not to be made up there. Ihore is one spot on the road in particular I must not forget to speak of, viz, dell's Gate. It is on die top of a high hill, over which the track runs. As you near the top, it gets very steep I and, atony, alao dwgetotw, the top

you can see lying below the bones of several poor horses that have lost the ■ number of their mess. On reaching the hill top you pass through the famous Hell's Gate, a narrow passage winding between some high rocky walls, only just room enough for a loaded horse to pass between. There were several places on the track still more rough and dangerous, y hut lauly the track has been shortened, and the worst of the places cut off. At the foot of Hell's Gate Range, we came upon a poor fellow who had been speared in four places by the blacks only a day or two before. He lay under an old blanket by himself, no one to attend on him but the passers-by, who did what they could for the poor i'dhow, and left him tucker. Sometimes he was qu:te alone, both uight and day, not a soul near for miles except perhaps some murdering blacks. His . wound* smell very bad, and he looked as if he was not long for this world, but be thinks he-will get over it, lie had one spear driven into his bre*sl, a second through his thigh, a third cut his side, a ' fourth grazed his neck, and the fifth spear (that was all thatSvere thrown) went through his swag. -So you can form some idea of the narrow escape from sudden death that the poor fellow^:had. „ The slacks are great cowards;'' thoy''''wero ■■ afraid to come ne«r him. I'liey seem .to',.', have no idea of the mischief and murder, ' they could do with perfect safety on that . track, where plenty travel all ) alone, and ; , quite unarmed. As I before observed, we > sav none on the road, nor a he Palmer. ■. We camped iu BoaUain's .s'ltily, : Left- A hand Branch; stopped there'.over two- ; weeks' trying about in different places', '■' but could not even make our tucker. We '■'■ worked out two men's ground indue week, stripped it 4ft. deep, worked like niggers from early to late, and all .\ye..: got was ■' about 4 Iwt, or about \si worth'of gold; .';•■ hot enough to pay for our.beef alone,;.; which came t0,17s for the week". Such : was our luck at gold-digging on the great;, Palmer Goldtiehi -the first alluvial rush**! I was ever at, and about the'biggest;' duffer of a Northern rush tliat'has ever' 1 been. Several of the claims' bad got stones to grass in which f "could see specks of gold; and, ou breaking the stone uo, it seemed to be very fairly dis-' tributed through and through,,but only specks here and there: very good crushing stone for a regular payable yield. Several of the claims are knocking out tucker by crushing the best of the stono with small wooden stampers, shod with pieces of horse-shoes, and swung to a bent sapling -the same as was used on -, the Thames, in the early days there. One claim in particular (as I was told) can get as muuli as 2oz. to a bucket of crushed stono.. You must remember they are not - ou rich patches of gold, but on middling ~ good stone, that will.yield'a regular ' amount of goldtto-the toni; There are" new lines of reefs being discovered and;, laid off every week. Go where you will on tii.j Palmer, you come across reefs cropping up, and any amount of loose quartz. A. good many nice; specimens have been picked up about Jin'different 1 - places, and from where they 'came there must be more. I believe, with a great mauy others, that the Palmar will be; in a tew years, one of the finest reefing districts in the colony. If wiTcould only have managed for one to earn enough at the alluvial to keep the others prospecting for a reef, or working a-.share on.one, we should not have left the..;Palmer,,bufc . we could not even make tuckcr-ior both of >. us. Neither can we get anyone down to back us on about thesahre'Jay were at Bingera, or we would; go .up'V again and try for several moitlhs until the:'' hot weather sets in; therefore j must . clear out and try ilsewu'ere^tiufr'inhere I know,'not, 'Mie of tne two-chap.s'that went up ;*ith us c;mie back aswell. The other -ull leave also if he eari.scraoe up' enough to pay his passage 'a'o'ai here to some other port. On our way do<vn we went to the Kennedy rtisli, 20 miles this side of Palmer It lias atsditurued: out (like all the other rushes up here) no go id. We stooped trying, there for two days, and could oniy raise a few colours, ihe prospectors, they say,.are getting a little, but.no one else, and- there were several parties trying above and below them, in comiug drwrt we met several women going up, one ooor thing walking behind a horse all tjie way. She seemed to be a decent, respectable person,' rather aged. I did pity the poor thing. We also met a lot or Ohing-Ooings going up —one with a European wife." At Sandy Creek we passed a packer who had just got four of his horses speared by the ■ blacks. Two of them were de-id. Sinoe that [ hear the troopers have been out there and shot a lot of' darkies. About a week ago they were out on tho Laura liiver and shot seven of them there, hat is the way they serve the a here: round' them up .like wild blasts, shoot them down, and there they lie, to rot where they fall. A poor fellow has just beenfound who was lost in the .bush over a week, .five days without food. We were speakiug to him in town yesterday and knew him well, as he travelled with us as. far as andy Flat, where we left him look-? ing for his horse, which had strayed away during the night. He got lost looking for it, and wnndered away down a river, passed through several old black camps, where tho blacks had been not long before, as their fires were still burning, and just managed to come across the old Palmer road when he dropped, and was found by some packers. He is an old man, and looks terribly bad now, although he has been found over two weeks. He can only 'account for his escape from the'blacks through their, having all travelled on ahead of him to ■ attack a storo on the lower track, which they pulled down and tore everything up. The owner luckily escaped unhurt.