BROKEN HILL.

Otago Witness, Issue 2785, 31 July 1907, Page 83

BROKEN HILL.

Dear Dot, —Of all the queer places I have had the luck (or ill-luck) to visit, Broken Hill, is the queerest. £o get here we travelled WOO miles by rail, -travelling-day and night; but as the South Australian carriages 'are very comfortable, we found the journey not so bad. Broken Hill is situated in a vast red desert. There is not a blade of grass to be seen anywhere, nothing but red dust. It is three years now since they had a real rain, and water is a luxury. The morning we arrived the people were rejoicing, for a light shower of rain had fallen during the night. What little water they have is carried miles and miles, and during the summer they have water trains from Adelaide. Instead of "wood and coal" yards they have "wood and water" yards here, and it looks so comical to see .a man take his tank in a dray to the water yard and have it filled. The main street has some splendid buildings, but outside of that there is absolutely nothing to see but the mine, which is right in the centre of the town. * : The gardens would make one laugh. In the- centre is a band rotunda. There are several seats, plenty of red sand, and a few weary-looking trees, the whole surrounded by a fence. Of grass or weed there is not a sign. The good folk of Broken Hill told us that had they .rain the ground would grow almost anything. We, of course, could not credit it. l^ie idea of anything growing in this dry and parched earth was ridiculous; but a few days ago, when rambling round, we came across a public park, where, in » small enclosed space round the bandstand, grew a tiny lawn cf luxuriant grass and the most lovely floweTs, and realised what a boon a little rain would be to them. Could not Dunedin well spare these poor people a little water? Broken Hill has a population of 45.000, anfi how the poor folk live during the summer, when the thermometer registers 118 and 120, passes my comprehension. There is no shade whatever; -there are not even many fences, for there is nothing to fence in. The miners' houses are small, and the majority of them are built of corrugated iron; and when the fierce, relentless sun blazea down on them day after day and week after week life must be a 7orry, to say the least of it. At this time of the year the chm-ate here is delicious —dry, warm days and cloudless blue skies, with never a sie-n of ~ain. Indeed, since we have been in Australia we have almost forgotten what a real rainy day is like. Excepting in a circus. I nevei saw a camel till I came here. Teams of them cany provisions to Whitecliff3, a settlement 200 miles across the desert. [Unfortunateiv. page i was missing from this interesting manuscript when it reached my hands; and we lose in consequence anything else there may have been about the camels.—DOT.] Talk about men!—l am quite tired of the sight of them. Everywhere one looks one sees men, men, men! All kinds of men — big, small, fat and thin, pretty and plain, tall and stumpy. There seems to be three times aa many men «s irornen here. The poor womenfolk are quite out of 't. We are staying here for 10 days. I do not think I shall bother about going downthe mine. I have been ail round the works: they seem just the same as any other mine, although it is the famous Broken Mill. From here we go to Adelaide —a journey of 20 hours in the train. ANGELESEA. Broken Hill, June 11, 1907.