QUAINT ORIGIN OF NAME

Hokitika Guardian, 23 January 1932, Page 6

QUAINT ORIGIN OF NAME

-Many places in New Zealand are queenly named, exotics in a setting mainly .Maori, says a writer in the

I “Auckland Star’', and the origin o, ■ some of them makes an interesting I story. In the mining area of the I . west coast of the South Island, a few Utiles south of Charleston, there is a little' place called Candt light ; and this, according to Mr J. !•'. Burke, of Arch Mill, who is one of the few remaining “beachcombers” of the early days in those regions, is the way in which the little settlement received its name: Some of the mining folk, having tired of washing ior line go I oil the beaches left for the mountainous hinterland. On the soot under(lisefissioti they formed a camp—for few settlement sites were permanent in tlioge days of tlie hist after gold—where they decided to stay for a few days. One night, very calm and still, some of thiit little community had occasion to go outsdo; and the only illumination they had w;ts candles. One ol 'the ••torch'’ hearers happened to look down to the ground at his feet. There glistening in the moss, like .so many glow norms, were a thousand! points of gleaming fire. Hit other I mission forgotten. !m lietil to look: and at his shout, all the community rushed, seized hags, and in a minute the place was denuded of moss. 'l’lluse points of lire proved to lie gold. In the morning, after the moss had been burned awav, it was found Unit the gold embedded therein was eomnaralivciy plentiful. When the news filter, ed through |o the outer world—there was an miter world even in New Zealand in those days -men rushed to that little place which the discover rs, for reasons which must he obvious, called ('aiidlelight.