HARD LUCK?

Stratford Evening Post, Volume II, Issue 23, 19 August 1932, Page 6

HARD LUCK?

FIVE MONTHS' PROSPECT ING LONG SEARCH FOR GOLD ONLY 21 OUNCES AT THE END OF IT BEACHCOMBER RECOUNTS HIS EXPERIENCES For five months he fossicked for gold—"beachcombed," he called it—among the black sands of the West Coast of the South Island . . . nearly 250 miles he tramped with his swag . . . and all he got for it was 2\ ounces of gold. "I will never go back to the Coast again for gold." he said, "it takes gold to get gold over there. I never saw anyone doing any good at the racket i took up. Some of them were not even making tucker, and many of them were living on damper and black tea. A Christchurch Sun reporter met him at Arthur's Pass. He had tramped over the pass from Otira during the night, and only after much trouble was he able to obtain shelter.

"Come down to the shack and have a drink of hilly tea, and I'll (ell you all about gold," he invited. "I got here about three o'clock lliis morning and was (old L couldn't get shelter. A ganger let me have the key to this shack, or I would have had to spend the night under the stars." 'There were two stretchers in Ihe hu(s, and a small fire glowed in (ho camp range. On the stretcher was his bedding, a grey blanket or two, and a sack. The other was bare. On the range was a billy, muchblackened with constant contact with open fires, and into this he threw a handful of tea. "1 don't suppose you \ have drunk tea out of a gold billy," J he ventured. "There are some flakes of gold in the join round the bottom. { It's not worth gelling out." lie was an Australian, he explained, j Ho had been over in New Zealand fori 17 months, and done some shearing and slaughtering, and to Jill in the offseason had decided to try his luck j among the black sand. With picturesque phrasing he commented on the propaganda that had been spread j about the black sand and gold. "To a man with little money it sounded all right. You can start in j shifting the black sand with a capital of quid —25-bOb for tucker and 15bob for miner's plush. You have to have plenty of money to start in the j alluvial business. That's what stops i most of these poor devils who are out of work." "Here, have some tea. Here's a cup I borrowed from the Railway Department. There's some sugar in that bag over there. It's all right; it's black because I have been carryingit with the tea." | He stirred up the fire a little. "Yes, I was as far down as Pariuga, about 60 or 70 miles on the other side of the Weheka River, past the Franz Josef. On my own. I packed my fucker some miles on my back, and I built myself a hut with thatched rushes. I was cosy. I put a big fireplace in it, built into a bank. 1 got busy. 1 worked from sunrise to sunset —no break, often not even for a midday meal — in all sorts of weather. It was cold, lonely country. "I got nothing. If I had not had a few bob to buy my tucker with I would have starved. And the tucker was dear; it. cost me 7s 6d for a 25 of flour, and I had to pack it on top of that. There were a few pigeons about, and one day I went out and got some with a shanghai. You are not allowed to take them, but it is a case of the survival of the fittest down there." He then recounted how he tramped on to Black River, it was filled up and he got nothing. From there he made lor Bruce Bay. He worked a claim there for three months and got. two ounces of gold. There he came across a couple of men who were almost* without tucker and without boots. He drew attention to his boots, solid hob- J nailed boots with tin; sleel studs in j the soles worn Hat. "Look hire," he I said. "He drew off one, and in the] heel were the long ends of horseshoe j nails that he had driven through tlie i heel lo make it last longer. "Your feet j gel. hard tramping over that rough country. They are almost as hard as my head, now." He added that his sole companion, a dog, suffered so much from sore feel, that he had to shoot if before) he started his trek north from Par- j inga. From Bruce Bay he tramped on to j Cook's River, and here he dumped his j swag and got lo work again. "II was I .hard work," he remarked. "I toiled! for a fortnight solidly, and all I got was 7dwls of gold for my trouble. 1 shovelled and shovelled that sand, and most limes there was nothing in that plush." "Beach gold is as fine as flour." lie continued, and proceeded Lo go into the'mechanics of beach mining—the sifting of Um gold from the sand in the plush (a certain kind of miner's cloth.), the amalgaming of it with mercury, and the separation of the gold from Ihe mercury in the retort. "You can't save if all. Once my plush was covered in gold flakes, and I though! I was made. That was the lime I got the 7dwts 1 was talking about." "What am I going to now? Well, 1 think J will wait here a few days,. and then make down country, and see ; what. I can get. I'll never go near the Coast, again, and I can't get away from it quick enough." "Wait a. minute and I will come up the hack with you. You will excuse! inc. bin this is my working suit, my Sunday suit and my dinner stiil —just | a. minute while 1 put it on." lie slip-j ped in—with some difficulty into a j ragged coal, frayed and torn in flu sleeves, through one of which a gen-J orous expanse of muscle forearm | showed. lie said good-bye on a philosophic J nolo. "Well, I suppose a, chap is lucky! I<> have his health and strength. Cheerio."