West of the Waiau. TO THE EDITOR.

Otago Witness, Issue 2179, 28 November 1895, Page 35

West of the Waiau. TO THE EDITOR.

Sir,— As j'o'Jr correspondent "Pakeha" writes, no doubt some of jour readers may ask Where is the Wniau? But he shuuld not draw on his imagination and as^erb as facts what he may have gathered on hearsay on his-holiday jaunt, and give the public the idea that he alone had penetrated the terra incognita. For many years past some one or other of the miners of this district have, single-handed, endeavoured to prospect the district at the base of the Princess Ringes, with but little success, owing principally to the difficulty of obtaining supplies of provisions— and more especially owing to payable gold not having yet been found. I may hero ask "Pakeha" how hi dare make the assertion that men are making

a living in the rugged Princess Mountains, when there is not nor has bejn one there for many years past. I was chosen with some others who are now scattered, and who doubtless will also reply to the scurrilous aud unfounded remarks of jour correspondent as well as myself, regarding the M-ospecting party west of the Waiau, by the Orepuki Mining Association" to thoroughly piospect that country. Gold has been known for many years to bo found up tbe Wuiau and Hillburn district, but it was beyond there that we made our way. The Gorge hut that " Pakeha " spenks ef is a deserted surveyor's hut, and was used by us only as a camping place, and afterwards as a reserve for some of our stores. Had "Pakeha" accompanied us he would have had to fare as hardly as we did, and even then found that wild pork and beef are not so easily found as his fertile imagination bugueata. And then he asserts that payable pcld exists in the Waiau district witkout ever having been there to see, on the strength of having spent an enjoyable fortnight, doubtless in the pailour of sonic hotel. Let bim take a shovel and dish, carry h's own tucker, and spend six months prospecting ; then he might be capable of giving a more authentic account of the gold-bearing dit^tricfc than the tissue of faleshoods that he has now concocted. It is owing to him, aud others like him, who never leave tbe shelter of the publichouse, that individual enterprises are run down, when they gather garbled reports from hearsay and pass them off as their own experience. — I am, etc., One of the Party. Orepuki, November 24.

Messrs Rt/berfc Donald, M.A., and E. A. Phillips, B. A. , have been appointed examiners to assist the inspectors in examining the pupil teachers' and scholarship papers this year. The average attendance of scholars is lower in the Taranaki and Wanganui districts than in any other districts in the colony.