CHAPTER I.

Otago Witness, 5 December 1900, Page 34

CHAPTER I.

y^\ ""!#* JE**|3 T was rough travelling on the golden liill • West Coast in the early seventies. Wt mffiWi&B* m -R° a d s proper there were none. A «i MMfflß* m rou g n hush track up the side of the H WfflW^vk* W rev -River, where a coach and some iff 1 W*fs (( ' m r^ nfcElvH' wa gg ons managed to struggle mt fff\ MmmtmSSl WwJi* " through was the only road then. Most of the goods were brought up the river in flat-bottomed boats drawn by horses, which walked along the side, and crossed and recrossed the river where the banks were unsuitable on that side and better on the other. It was hard work for men and horses; dangerous also, for men got drowned, and sometimes horses too. Coming down the river the horses were taught to walk into the boats, so they had an easy time then. As much as £70 a ton was paid for the first boat-loads that went up as high as the Little Grey. It cost about £8 a ton for twenty miles even then. The goods had to be placed on horseback after that for miles, all up the creeks and gullies where gold was being found. Scrambling up terraces, slipping down gullies — all heavily timbered — across creeks, often swollen to large dimensions by the often recurring rains, they went. Wading up to their waists in mud on the miserable bush tracks, soaked to the skin, camping on the wet ground, with wet scrub for beds, it needed a hardy lot of men to do it and stand the rough life.

It was astonishing how the diggers so quickly spread over such a country. Fossicking up creeks, finding gold on their bottoms; climbing up terraces, finding gold on their tops; putting in tunnels here, digging a hole there ; bringing in headraces or making tailraces; felling timber to make boxes, or damming creeks to get a supply of water, or shifting boulders out of their way in their feverish search for gold — they went here, there, and everywhere. They found it, too, in large quantities in many places.

Old Man's Terrace and Never Despair Terrace were noted for their richness, and some millions' worth of gold has been taken out of them ; and now that dredging is beginning, they hope to get some more millions out of Wellington Creek and its valley, that lie between the two terraces. But dredging was not even dreamt of then, and the mode of working was sluicing, for which water was brought in by a big race, built by Government, from a Lake farther away among the ranges. Miners had their races connected with it, and paid so much a head for the water. It was on a higher terrace behind, and the clear water came flashing down the terrace side in wooden shoots, which were caried in some cases across the lower terrace on high trestles, like an inverted V, to the claims the water was to work. In others nearer it plunged direct into big iron pipes, with which hose were connected, to be spouted forth at the other end with great force against the face of gravel, bringing it rattling down, to be washed through narrow boxes, where a man stood forking out the big stones, which were thrown on a heap on the already worked ground. The gravel l-uns through the boxes, leaving a large proportion of the gold stuck in the crevices in the bottom, then down the tailrace, to emerge and spread out like an opened fan on the valley along the creek, changing its clear waters into a yellow, thickish fluid, and raising the bed of the creek till it overflows and spoils the good land there. The miners do not take into acount the " unborn millions " that it might grow food for in time to come. That does not trouble them in the least. " They don't care a cuss for the unborn millions, not they." The terrace had been originally all bush-covered ; now there were great holes gaping

in it, with men working in them. Great piles of stones — which in time grew a red or grey moss — intersected by deep tailraces and little patches of left bush, here and there bridges dropping water instead of crossing water — all made a scene of curious topsy-turviness to a stranger. The miners' rude huts were scattered about, and there were two or three shanties dignified by the name of hotels, though the principal township was on the other side of Wellington Creek, on Old Man's Terrace. All the gullies for miles had diggers up them, and things were lively on a Saturday afternoon and Sunday, when they came in for their week's provisions, or a spree, or both combined. Then the hotels and dance rooms did a roaring trade, and things went with a life and vigour absent in these later days.

The Rose of Erin Hotel, kept by William Clark, more popularly known as Bendigo Bill — from his many yarns about how they did things on Bendigo — was a favourite resort on Old Man's Ten*ace. Bill was a big, fat, red-faced man, with a jolly expression and twinkling eyes. He had a big grey beard, which hid his mouth and thick lips, and you wondered if he was all mouth when he suddenly laughed and opened it, showing a big red tongue in a startling manner. He had a great fund of humourous anecdotes, collected in his many travels. He had been in California in his youth, an.d on nearly all the Australian goldfields. Gabriel's Gully and the Dunstan also had known Bendigo Bill, so he was quite an authority, in his own opinion, and did not scruple to let others know it too, for he could talk like a " threshing machine," as Happy Moments put it. Happy Moments was a regular frequenter of his bar, and they had g'ven him his name because he was only happy the moments he was drunk. These moments were as many as Happy Moments could possibly make them ; but as his gold ran done he had to have some unhappy moments trying to get some more. Bendigo Bill had the best dance room, the finest girls, and the most enticing, seductive barmaid on Old Man's Terrace. Whatever else was wanted, hotels were not. They were always plentiful, for men's thirst must be quenched, and there were plenty of places of a kiad to do it. Of all the abominations most vile, some of the liquors sold in them were the worst. Tobacco, kerosene, even vitrol, or anything to give it a body and flavour and drive men crazy, so that the shantykeepers got their money, were used. They were not all alike, and Bendigo Bill drugged no man's liquor, or went through no man's pockets when drunk. He gave them the best liquor he could buy, and they were thankful, and respectable men with a thirst quenched it there.

" You'll be agreeable and smile on 'cm — all the boys will be at your feet in a week," he told Norah Finnigan, a good-looking, grey-eyed Irish girl, when engaging her services

as barmaid. " But no hocus-pocus tricks in my house. Fair and square we'll scoop the pool. 'Tothers won't be in it this show." They weren't, for Miss Finnigan understood her business, and the boys swarmed round her like bees round a honey pot in the sun. " Will you walk into my parlour, says the spider to the fly, ' had no other exponent nearly so accomplished as Norah Finnigan on Old Man's Terrace, and Bendigo Bill was well satisfied, though her salary was four pounds a week. His only fear was that she might be induced to marry one of them. So far she had shown no marked preference, treating them all alike, so long as their money or gold lasted. That

done, if a luckier digger appeared on the scene, they suddenly found their noses put out of joint in a most disconcerting fashion till they found some more gold, and then Norah would smile sweetly once more. " Smiles purchased by the yard," as one unlucky digger, on whom she did not smile, put it to Harry Nolan, her favourite for the time being. " I'll punch your head for ye, if yez don't hould yer jaw," was Harry's heated retort to this sarcastic remark. He was a peaceable man, and he held his jaw, but thought a deal, and it was certainly not complimentary to Miss Finnigan. Bendigo Bill was a bachelor. He had never married in his many ramblings, and did not intend to now. Norah had tried some of her blandishments on him, but after he told her with his eyes twinkling, his big mouth with. its red tongue showing in amusement, " Keep your sweet looks for the boys ; no use wasting them on a hoary old sinner like me," she let him severely alone, and treated him with the scantiest civility she could considering he was her employer. That suited him, and he admired her methods immensely, though he did not admire her personally, much to her disgust. Her four pounds a week was hardly earned, money, and many a poor wretch went a little faster to the devil on acount of it. Most of them took it as the chances of war with great equanimity ; but some, harder hit, made nasty remarks which penetrated even Norah's hardened conscience, and she was beginning seriously to think she would be better to marry. Who? was the problem. She, in spite of her smiles, had no idea of marrying any of those who usually crowded the Rose of Erin's bar. "If they spend their money so foolishly now, they would do it after," she wisely thought, and in her inmost heart she regarded them with a kind of tolerant contempt, which would have considerably astonished her admirers if they had known of it. There was a great spirit of rivalry among them. Some were only amusing themselves, and did not scruple to laugh over it behind her back; others were half in earnest, and some very much in earnest indeed. Among them were several making from £20 to £50 a week — and in some cases far more — who spent their money " like men," as Bendigo Bill put it ; " like fools," the more sober-going said. So Bendigo Bill "' had struck it rich " when he got Norah as barmaid, and he was well aware of it. They certainly were the good old times. Easy come, easy go, was the almost universal practice, and many a man spent thousands then who now is glad of charitable aid or an old-age pension.