BUYING EXPERIENCE

Evening Star, Issue 21427, 2 June 1933, Page 2

BUYING EXPERIENCE

WITHOUT SPONGING OH FATHER

[By T.J.W.]

Late in the ’sixties Auckland was industrially shaky, due to a large extent to tho cost of the Maori Wars and the withdrawal of the Imperial 'troops. Many men elected, in preference to accepting reduced wages, to try the kauri gum digging. The equipment for that venture meant but a trifling outlay, and likely land was available within a day’s walk of the city. A Welshman and myself resolved to “ give it a go,” and carried our swags to a flat at the too of the Waitakerai Range, a trudge of twenty miles or thereabouts. An hour’s observation of the process sufficed for initiation. The tools were a 6ft sharpened iron rod, with which to probe for something hard; a spade for digging out the find; a big Maori k\t to carry the gum so unearthed (if it happened to be gum) ; and sheath knife for rough scraping the sizeable gam, freeing ot dirt each piece up to or above the measure of a golf ball. Tho new chum often w r asted time by delving to extract what proved to be a root or a boulder. Experience with the spear helped to enable a man to tell by “ the feel ’’ and by the sound of the strokes whether he was on or off what he was washing to find. Luck played a more important part in the results, as it docs with alluvial cold mining. At the best, however, the gum-digger was against odds. Now and again he might strike a rich ]xatch. More often he had to he satisfied if he could square up with the travelling storekeeper, who commonly found out, if tho men were finding plentifully, that the price of gum had gone down. Perhaps these storekeepers were being squeezed by the wholesalers to whom they sold the gum, and thus were forced to pass on the squeeze. Anyway, in those days, the late ’sixties, tho gum-diggers were mostly working for their tucker, and it was soon realised by the city’s unemployed that the game wasn’t worth the c,indie; hence it came about gradually that gum-digging was realised to bo not a payable standby for all and sundry, but an occupation that gave its profits to properlyorganised parties equipped with improved appliances and free of tho happy-go-lucky and ever-varying arrangements with itinerant storekeepers. I never hoard of a hatter or a new chum making a pile at the game, A good specimen was worth no more than a shilling. I know nothing of the gum-digging nowadays, but in my time it was laborious, and held out no prizes, A few years later I took out a miner’s right for Mount Ida, and made one of a party of four that held a ground sluicing claim at Spec Gully at the back of Naseby. Isaac Parfit and jiis brother William and Joe Laing being the others. Heine Gully yielded good gold, some of it rough, to the early prospectors before the shops wore built on it to form the main street. The; outer spurs and ravines were hungry' working, nothing coming but very fine gold, peppered thinly and embedded in a cemcnty wash that needed a deuce of a lot of water to disintegrate and long tail races with boxes that were specially constructed. It was back-breaking work to fall the overburden of clay and rock into the paddock with picks and crowbars, and not very encouraging, for wc really expected only the flour of‘gold, and a watch had to bo set against thieves who robbed the boxes. vStill we went on courageously, buoyed by the slender possibility of striking a payable pocket. For, though tho gold was in very minute specks, it was gold, and in the minds of old miners such as my mates were to be on gold is an ineradical .stimulus, expressed in tho saying “ You never can tell what is an inch ahead of your pick.” The Hogburn of the early ’seventies was one of the hungriest of the Otago goldfields, nevertheless men hung on to it lor years, and our party would have struggled on but for a drought that dried up the races and sent us down country for the harvesting at ]2s 6d per day. Tho Naseby that we left was a busy place of an evening. About a dozen pubs wofe providing some sort of recreation—Edwin George (of the Victoria), Hunter (of the Empire), Goorgo Collet (of the Ancient Briton) being names that rise to the memory, and other shopkeepers that I recall being R. Aitken (“ Bob. tho Pieman”), Walter Inder (butcher), Neils Hjorring (draper), Louis Busch (photographer and proprietor of a lending library), and Hugh Wilson (printer). The farmers whose crops wc liar vested wore those of Luke (Black Bull Hotel, in Shag Valley) and Dillon Bell just across the road.

Cows were a nuisance about Nasohy. They used to wander round the tents and damage those flimsy structures. One evening our party, -walking, homo with Yankee Harry, spied a cow trying to look inside his tent. “ Watch the fun,” cried Harry as lie ran out ahead brandishing a pick handle. He crept up noiselessly, found tho cow with its head inside, and smote it a heavy filow on tho rump. Presumably he expected the cow to withdraw and apologise. What actually happened was that she made a headlong rush forward, uprooting the pegs, wrecking the interior, and, becoming entangled in the ropes, shooting head over heels down into the next gully. One of the hardships to the miners in those days was tho want of firing. Wo could not afford to buy coal. Every night, instead of a comfortable smoko and rest, all hands had to turn out to scrape tho countryside for “ buffalo chips ’’ (cow manure), speargrass, and wild Irishman.

Notwithstanding the draw-backs—the scantiness of the returns, the homeliness of the faro to avoid running into debt, tho want of tho rousing fives that make for comfort at .the Mount Ida altitude—it was a life that was tolerable to the hardy minors of tho period, and in my looking back J, always think of the Hogburn experience as a distinct step up from the dejected and hopeless gum-digging. My next try for gold lasted only a few days. It was in following a rush to Oulgong, in Now South Wales. As soon as my party arrived there, going by tram from Sydney to Wallerawong and thou trudging over tho range, wo learned that it was no more than a storekeeper’s duffer rush; and a brief trial on our own account satisfied us that further labour there meant an outgo of about 2s Gd per day for board for workhouse faro and income of nil.

So wc saved our money for the trip to Cooldown,' Northern Queensland, to try our luck at the great Palmer rush, which was attracting old miners and adventurous men from all parts of tho world. Our short stay at Cooktown, making preparations for the long trek by bridle track hundreds of miles jnto tho heart of tho Capo York Peninsula, raised high hopes as to getting on to something rich. Men were coming down with weighty bags of gold and spending freely in pubs and dancing saloons. Life in the town was at its liveliest and- maddest. Of course, wo saw little of the unlucky men who came down “ broke” as to purse

health. Gold was to be found almost anywhere on the Palmer, but tucker was Is xrer pound all round, and the majority failed to find the rich pockets. Our party had to disband, after many months of inspecting, and when I left Cooktown I was £BO the poorer for the expedition, or would have been, but for obtaining work on one of the two newspapers printed at Cooktown.

Varied experiences of prospecting in Northern Queensland remain in tho memory. I liked the country very much. It is hilly and well wooded, consequently well watered, except in the dry season, when travelling had to be from water to water. The climate is quite endurable, dangerous only to confirmed drinkers. The blacks were troublesome sometimes. If seen they were not bent on mischief. We had to be wary in the reedy river shores. Once we were attacked with a shower of spears, one young Irishman being hit in tho forearm by a spear, the point of which emerged a foot. Wo hacked off the protruding barb, withdrew tho spear, and cauterised with a burning twig the hole in the arm. I can even now hear tho poor fellow’s yell. But the rough surgery saved his life. Another ineffaceable episode may bo mentioned. Trying to roach a new “ find ” we got isolated on a big spit between two rivers that suddenly became raging torrents. We were out of tucker, nothing left but preserved potatoes and mustard. For nearly three weeks wo subsisted on what wo could find in tho bush. Wo were starving. Then signals were seen from the other side of the Normanby lliver that Darcy Uhr, tho travelling butcher, was there. We conferred with the other party similarly isolated, and agreed that a man should try to swim across and bring back a lump of meat. By lot it was determined that our party must find the man, and tho short straw was drawn by Joseph Parry, formerly a compositor on the ‘ Otago Daily Times.’ As it showed ho was a good swimmer. All the same we know and ho know that he was risking his life when he plunged in, carrying money in his belt and a piece of stout string. He got across all right, about a mile below, bought a lump of beef, securely tied it with the string, tho end of which lie held in In's tooth, let the beef rest between his shoulders, and steadily swam with tho breast stroke, shaping his course anglewise with the current, and, dodging the logs, he landed safe and sound, but just about done. It was the bravest act I ever saw.