SKETCHES ON THE SHOTOVER.

Otago Witness, Issue 1243, 25 September 1875, Page 16

SKETCHES ON THE SHOTOVER.

BY OUR LAKES CORRESPONDENT. Part 111. deadjun's terrace. Every old Shotover resident, when the subject of Dead man's Terrace is referred to, replies with a very considerable amount of grave reluctance ; for the name, suggestive as it is of some fatal mining catastrophe, calls up recollections not only of men whose lives have been sacrificed in the pursuit of gold mining, but also ruin and disaster to many hundreds of other poor fellows whom, spared from destruction by rushing torrents and falling hills, 'were nevertheless left homeless and penniless by the warring of the waters with which they were assailed. The 26th day of July, ISG3, was a day ever to be remembered by miner* who in the early days of the Wakatip gold field had braved the dangers of the Shotover. It was a Sabbath day ; not one of rest and quiet* ness, but of fear and trembling ; neither the good nor the bad found peace upon that memorable occasion, for the "Old Man" flood ragpd in all its pitiless fury. For some time previous to the 24th, the weather had been clear and frosty ; there had occurred a succession of heavy snowstorms, and the snow lay thickly upon the hills and in the valleys, enveloping the country in one unbroken sheet of bpotless white. The spectacle was a magnificent one, and when in the day time the sun shone out bright upon the pinnacled tops of the mountains, tho great ranges of the Shotover fairly dazzled the beholder with their startling brightness, and the rays of Old Sol as he illuminated these steep and towering snow-clad heights, seemingly converted the landscape into one interminable mass of burnished silver. It wai the first winter of gold mining on the Shotover, and the banks of the modern Pactolus were teeming with a busy crowd of men, mho occupied every inch of vantage grounu where gold was to be found, or where there existed even the remotest possibility of finding any. The miners were all pretty well provided with provisions, for it waa said, and generally believed at that time, that when winter once did set in on the Shotover, and the snow lay thick upon the ground, and the country fairly within the encircling grasp of King Fro*, everything would be so ironbound that all communication would be cut off from the plains below, and the hundreds of hardy pioneers who had penetrated so far into the interior of Otago would be fairly imprisoned in the fastnesses of the mountains. It was generally believed that this time had arrived, and the miners, like voyagers to the Arctic seas when overtaken by the winter, were now fairly imprisoned, and had nothing to do but to prepare themselves for the worst that might come. But the only evil they anticipated could overtake them was frozen and ice-bound streams, and they had come there to turn these circumstances to advantage, by its there assisting them to gather up the gold from the banks and beaches of the river. The Shotover, which, owing to the congealing of the mountain torrents which supplied ie from the ranges, it was believed would eventually become so reduced in volume that places, even those covered with water, would come to be high and dry. The Shotover steadily continued to decrease in volume almost every day, and as beach after beach was left bare or partially so, they were immediately occupied and laid under tribute by the miners, who diligently washed the sands, and dug out the crevices of the rocks for the gold they contained. Some I very good finds were made, hopes beat high, and everybody was in excellent spirits at! the seemingly good fortune that awaited i them. But, alas, for the uncertainty of all human calculations, towards the evening of Friday, the 24th, the sky suddenly became overcast with clouds, and a decided hesl

wind came in continuous and regular puffs from the north- west ; while on the following morning it rained, the weather still continuing quite warm. As the day wore on,' so did the rain increase in quantity, nntil it settled int> one steady and violent downpour, and the snow on the ranges melted away even ten times quicker than it would have done from the effects of a hot summer's Run. Afternoon came, and the Shotover commenced to pour down in a muddy, murky stream ; and as the water steadily rose, it as steadily flooded out the niintra' claims, until all were covered by the rising tide, while every creek from the mountains was converted into a torrent. Still, nooning so serious as what afterwards occurred was even appiehended. Yet there appeared to prevail a strange foreboding of evil, and few dared to retire to rest on this evening of unspeakable horrors. At midnight, as far as the pale moonlight would permit, it was ascertained that the river had risen 25 feet above the ordinary level; while, undermined by water, rocks and slips of land began to either fall or slide down from the faces of precipitous hills, both abutting on to, and in iha near vicinity of. the river. During the same afternoon, some very heavy land-slips, bringing down with them large quantities of scrub aud trees, had occurred about two miles up Ballarat Creek, which empties itself into the Shotover, and forms one of the boundaries of the celebrated Deadman's Terrace, the subject of this story, although it was not so named at that time, but from the subsequent occurrence which was so shortly to lollow. At the mouth of this creek was a sort of. intermediate terrace, well-sheltered by the more precipitous terrace above, ami from which easy accrss could be gained to the river, while it also formed a most desirable camping place. Availing themselves of these circumstances, three parties of miners, numbering twentyfour men in all, engaged working some very rich beach claims on the river bank just be low, had built themselves very comfortable stone huts here, aiid, so far as human foresight could conceive, concluded that no barm could possibly reach their dwelling-places, especially from the direction of the Shotover, which ran at least fifty feel belo.r wnile danger from any other quarter waa never once apprehended. Deeming themselves thus thoroughly Becure, the twenty-four inhabitants of the little terrace had retired to their beds for the night, little dreaming that one-half of their number would never rise to daylight any more, and entirely ignorant that two rocks situate in the middle of the creek a short distance above the terrace had caused a jam of the debris floating down, and which was gradually and surely piling up to overwhelm them. By half- past one o'clock in the morning, aa it waa afterwards ascertained, and which was the hour the Bad catastrophe occurred, the drifting mass had accumulated so as to have formed a perfect dam or embankment right across the creek, and attaining a height of forty-two feet. At this juncture, the weight of the still accumulating material, which was being added to so rapidly from behind, must then have suddenly burst its bonds, wh^n, with a noise that shook the ground like an earthquake, the concussion being felt for come distance off on both sides of the river, and loud above the din of the raging waters, the mass was swept down into the river, overwhelming everything before it with its irresistible farce. The little encampment on the terrace entirely disappeared, and with it twelve of the dwellers therein, who could noS escape in time, or, probably, never awoke to a knowledge of their doom. Those who did escape only saved themselves from being caught in the avalanche by the merest chance, while four out of their number were severely wounded by the falling materials which had composed their homes.

When daylight came the Shotover presented a scene of the wildest desolation. The beautiful emerald green current of two days previous was converted into a stream of grey_ looking muddy water, while it had risen fully thirtyfive feet above its then level. As it bounded along on its mad career, the hurrying river bore upon its bosom an accumulation of debiia of every conceivable description, from the stately tree which but the day previous was firmly rooted in the forest, down to the insignificant little veronica shrubs that had been washed from their scanty holdingplaces in the rocky ledges of the river. Added this were enormous quantities of dressed • and undressed timber which had been prepared for mining purposes, together with sluice boxes, water-wheels, cradles, wreckage from ruined and washed-away dwellings, bags of flour and boxes of provisions, besides articles of the most heterogene oua description, impossibletoenumerate. Two of the bodies of the drowned men were afterwards recovered from the river, bnt those of the other ten doubtless weie borne along by the flood until they ultimately reached the ssa. In proof of this, and the fact \vas thoroughly authenticated, that for several days after this great and disastrous flood dead bodies were frequently seen drifting silently down the Molyneux. past the Dunstan and past the Teviot, and which could have come from no other place than from the bhotover. Upon one particular occssion, three days after this memor able Sunday, the dead body of a man standing bolt upright in the water like as it "were in life, having outstretched arms, but, with strange-looking glassy eyes, drifted down past the town of Clyde, to the unspeakable horror of all who beheld it. The bodies of the two men that were recovered wtre buried high up on the terrace above where their huts once stood, and where their graves may be seen to the present day ; and it was from this circumstance that the terrace derived its name.

Some of the beach workings on the river here had turned out exceedingly well ; and , one of the parties of eight men (mates of some that were drowned) had, previously to the flood, obtained no less than sixty-eight ', pounds weight of gold — a most prosperous beginning for their winter's delvint»s. As soon as things had sufficiently ssttled themselves down, and before work had been resumed, the miners called a meeting to consider what should be done with the property of the lost men, when it was decided that their shares should be sold by auction, and the proceeds secured for their friends or relatives, which course of action was no sooner agreed upon than it was put into

effect, and the shares realised -from £94 to £96 each. The number of eight to a party having been made up again, the men (24 in all) amalgamated for the purpose of building a large dam, which work was completed, and the bod- rock of the river laid T>are ; but. strange to relate, the gold-bearing wash had all disappeared, and the boitom was swept clean. This, in all probability, was the result of the overwhelming avalanche of debris which had swept down Ballarat Creek and occasioned all the mischief, as nails, knives and forks, and other small articles in iron, known to have belonged to the washedaway huts, were found driven fast into the crevices of the rock, which previous to the flood was covered with between three and four feet of highly-auriferous gravel. It hiia upon several other occasions been ascertained that violent floods frequently shift portions of the river bed, as oftentimes, after one of these visitations, where gold was previously known to exist none has been left, while in other cases blank spots had become payably auriferous. The Shotover, however, never recovered from the effects of the " Old Man" flood. Hundreds left the river quite disheartened, and never returned to it again. Deadman's Terrace presents rather a forlorn and deserted- looking appearauce at the present time ; the desolation caused by the "Old Man" flood seems never to have been entirely erased. Two parties are engaged working in the river, clo<e under it, and who have their huts on the self-same little intermediate teirace when the catastrophe of the avalanche occurred. One of the huts is occupied by a married miner, living with his wife and family, and who possesses a really comfortable dwelling, enclost d with a pretty little garden, where, with his family, hid fouls, aud his cow, he seemingly lives oblivious of the unhappy history of thoae who once had made their homes. there before him. But such an overwhelming disaster as that of the early Sunday morning of the ever-tp-beremembered 26th day of July, 1863, is by no means likely to occur again, aud the new comers on the little terrace may go to bleep even if the winds do blow, and angry floods leap, and dance, and war, with ttie greatest confidence of immunity ftom these effects. There are no more trees up Ballarat Creek now, while the rocks which caused the jam have been buried up with succeeding and gradual accumulations of debris, leaving an interrupted flow for the water, some few feet above what it was at the time of the painful occurrence herein recorded. The " Old Man " flood did not entirely confine its ravages to the upper waters of the Shotover. Some twenty miles lower down the river, at the mouth of Moke Creek, eleven more men were swept away by a landslip and lost, while up Moke Creek itself there was another similar disaster, and eight more lived were sacrificed. Besides, three other men perished at a third place, making in all thirty-four lives during this terrible flood forfeited in the search for gold lon the Shotover. Out of this latter lot of drowned men only the body of one was found, and it was recovered from a vast pile ' of debris which had accumulated in a bend of the river at a place called Big Beach, about two miles below Moke Creek junction. The remains were afterwards identified as those of a miner named Wilkinson, lost from Moke Creek. Sudran unparalleled disaster* as that of the "Old Man" fWd-it is 1 calculated has never occurreu. during the history of gold mining in the (Southern Hemisphere.