Untitled

Evening Star, Volume VII, Issue 2040, 18 November 1869, Page 2

Gold-seeking at Mount Cook.-~ As showing the difficulties attend'ng mining pursuits on the west coast of this island, and the good-humored indifference to danger, hardship, and disappointment manifested by the hardy race of me a who are engaged in developing the resources of the above comparatively unknown part of New Zealand, the /Southland Times publishes an extract from a letter received in Invercargill lately. The writer of the letter some years ago conceived the idea that Mount Cook was the head quarters of all the gold on the West Coast. About twelve months ago he managed to get four converts to his opinion, and the party set out for their ideal El Dorado. They went to work at the Cook River, right under the base of the mountain, and struck what they considered a fair prospect. Thinking from this that the bed of the river would be rich with the previous metal, they resolved to turn its course. This took seven months to accomplish, then provisions in the meantime having to be “swagged” fifteen miles up the river “through a country matted with supplejack, * wild Irishmen,’ and every conceivable description of briar and bramble. ” The result of their first day’s washing up was that they got sufficient gold to fill a thimble. “We resolved, however,” says the writer, “not to iib on it, and washed all the bed of the river laid bare. 'lhis took us three months more, and then we divided the spoil. Altogether, it amounted to—well, just as much as paid for the flour and tobacc i we consumed ; and we found, when too late, that our first prot* pect was only ‘a patch.’ I am sure that I am “ten years an ohier man’ since last November ; and my mates—well, one poor fellow looks about forty years older, and the others about fifteen ea;h. ” They were then glad to leave the uninviting country. The writer of the letter, however, has sot in to work at Bruce Bay, where, taking “Nil Desperandum” for his motto, he has made up his mind to have a few hundreds befort Cnrisrtmas. He certainly deserves it.