THE HEAD WATERS OF THE SUOTOVER.

Otago Witness, Issue 941, 11 December 1869, Page 13

THE HEAD WATERS OF THE SUOTOVER.

(Cromwell Guardian.)

Although the public are no doubt well acquainted with the peculiarities of the Shotover, it may not be generally known that iU head waters are located in what is to all intents and purposes a terra hicognita. Plucky and determined m the minor and mining prospeotor undoubtedly are, the inhospitable character of the region in which it takes its rise has, to a great extent, deterred them irooi proseouting their researches up to its source. One notable exception to this rule is the party to whom we are indebted for these jottings. Single handed, he fossiok«d out some of its more intricate defiles, and, after spending several weeks among them, was forced by want of provisions to return within the pale of civilisation and settlement. The tonr. or rather we may say the feat, for ■uch in. truth it is, was accomplished within the last few weeks by a person wellknown in OromwelL The narrative, as communicated to us, la briefly as follows:-- ' - • Leafing Quoenstown, our informant pttowded by way of Skippers, up Skipper*' Greek stress part of the Aurom range; and thence visited the right and left haftd branohes of the river. At the junction, he found three digging parties, one of whom had been settlod in the plaoe for tho past five years, and in addition to digging had reared a few head of oattlo. . Each of tho parties was employed sluicing the temces, water for that purpose being raUod out of one or ttro < I tho gullies running into the left hand branch of the nyer. They had'ooastruoted races, ranging in length from ono to two milsa, aooording to oir-

'markaltfb'JAHVfe^^^^ < montliß.o! ten'se'4aV work .Tias; to other, the average yield.pf goia is Admitted to be good. AlthoUgh; mhg the to l a 'standstill, the' parties, .remain > on the ground and keep .1 themselves tolerably corafbrtable-scrttb ' injhe"neighbowhood* being, plentiful,,; ?>"•»*£» hikhest.pbinton^he Shotover to whifth. provisions are brought. They are packed up regularly on, horseback from Batcher's Point,' opposite Skippers, a distance, of It or 18 miles., There .xs no track but what has been beaten out by the parties themselves, still, those , at all famUiar with, the, bearings ; of, the^country could not very well go astray. # Theprovisiona go up, weather permitting, once a week. , • , ■ " ' t; j About seven miles, up the left nana branch, ( amidst some of the wU de s* country that could possibly be imaginea, an old Yankee soldier . has .taken, up ms abode for the last five or six years. g« knoclts out aliving fossicking about the crevices, and the only intercourse he maintains with the outer world— that is, the JTunotion excepted— is once .every year, when he makes- an exoursxon> to Queenfltown. He i» known by the cognomen'of "Caribou," and it u-M*a that he never visits Queenstown without leaving his impress upon the ' owculating medium of the place, thereby showing that on the left hand branch of the river a bit of gold is to be picked up. He packs his tucker from the Junction on his own back, and acme idea of the fastnesses amidst whion ne lives may be gathered from the fft6t, that in going to and from his abode, ne has to crawl on all-fours. Despite the solitary life he lives; h* i» deigCTibed as a "jolly old coon," living in a good stone hut, amidst plenty of scrub for firewood. Old Caribou is the lastvestigeof'settlement on this branch of the river. In fact, to get .beyond his dwelling, it i» necessary to leap from! rock to rock; at the imminent risk of falling down precipices, in some places hundreds of feck deep. A few miles over this dangerous country, and the traveller finds hinwelf on a fiat about one mile long and half a mUe wide, surrounded on every side by high precipitous mountains. The flat it formed out of a bed of sHiiigly beach, iv no way suitable for agricultural pursuits. This had evidently, at no .very remote period, been a mountain lake, and even now it seems questionable if, at certain states of the river, it be not submerged. Our prospector tried different parts of the flat, and railed the colour with each dishful. He fanoied that, with proper appliances, it would pay remarkably well, bathe did not seem to have the remotest idea how such appliance! could be got on the ground. At the lowest estimate, he says, that a dray would require a" pair of wings to' reaoh it, and even a paokhorse would be the better of something more effective than the natural meant of locomotion; The sides of the cohterminating ranges are reef-bearing, although in no instance was gold visible to the naked eye. Our information next treats of the right hand branoh. After following it up a distance of eight miles the > channel was found to hem up into a singularly narrow gorge, at the lowest calculation. 600 f«et deep, and not more than four feet wide. In fact, our informant described it as a rent in the rock, the bank oa each tido being perfectly perpendicular. Down through tail narrow rook-bound channel the waters roar and tumble with tremendous fury. To lie down on the top of the bank and look over the preoipioe it described at a sight to be remembered. Beyond the gorge, which is a quarter of a mile in length, the river branches off into foxkt, forming two goodly weed creeks. Up the right hand fork our traveller wat ena* bled to prooeed a distance of six or vtven mile*. The country for that dittanoe ia tolerably level, forming » raeotuion of terraces, the colour of gold being got on the moit of them. The left tana fork wat rather more rugged, although travelling was not ( by any Jnetatt to difficult ai it wm found to be further down. The ground, almott to the water't edge, was oloesly timbered with tome of the higher olataei of New Zealand wood. Fine t rateht tkiokt of birch are specially mentioned, and during the early days of quarto reefing at Skippers a deal of timber used for erecting machinery wat taken out of the bush. It wat floated through the gorge 1 in tingle stumps, and af terwardt made up into raft* and tent down the river to its destination. The bush abound* in kakat. Maori bijt, and a fow pigeons. Our informant Wdi, thai for the latt few days of hit lUiv in the neighbourhood be tubtitted acltly upon thete,