A Letter from Kimberley.

Wairarapa Standard, Volume XIX, Issue 2002, 8 December 1886, Page 2

A Letter from Kimberley.

Kimbbbi.bt, September 30. I am now on the lovely goldfields of Kimberley, if they can be called so. 1 have been bogy all the week shoeing horses and fixing up drays for people, and I think it would be the best game if there was enough of it. Our jonrney up to tbe field from Derby was a long and tedious one ; our drays had to be repaired about half a dozen times. The road for the first two hundred miles was very heavy, the wheels sinking in sands np to the axle in places, and consequently it took us six weeks and four days to reach the field. But in spite of all this wo reached here before most of the Trinmpn passengers, and are now camped oj tbs banks of the Elvire River, all well. John Jackson turned back when within ninty three miles of the field on account of ill health. There is plenty of grass and water on the way up, some of tbe grass measuring twelve feet bight. That will give you an idea of what growth there is here in the wet season. We saw plenty of crocodiles and alligators on our way, principally on the banks of the Fltzroy River. Dead horses also were numerous, most of them killed by hard work, but some by a poisonous plant called Darling Pea. Now, about the fields. Well, I don’t think much of them. Out boys have been working up the Elvire, where some twenty are working claims, and they average about 2s 6d per man per day—not very bright, is it ? Over to the right of us, about six miles, lies MoPhee’s Qully, where some three hundred were camped when we came here, but only fifty stopped, and are getting half a pennyweight to a pennyweight a day, hardly enough to earn food. There are some very old men here who look more fit for the grave than carrying ;dirt to wash. There is a

batcher here who kills three bollocks a week, and you should see the sight when he takes out the offal; the diggers cut and tear it away like so many wild beasts. In five minutes there is no sign of the intestines. This of course is meat for the hungry diggers—poor fellows who can’t buy beef, although it is only Is per lb, and mutton lOd. The drays are sold for next to nothing, from 6s 6d to £1; first class horses from ten to twenty pounds. Nearly all the Triumph passengers have left or are leaving the field. I don’t think more than ten of them will see the wet season through. I don't know yet what our party will say about seeing the wet season through. Of conrse tiwra is any ghanoe of making anything we shall stay. We have another mC2! hj to look about, and then we will decide. You can get the color anywhere, but not iu payable quantities. The country about here is all hills and gullies, covered with quartz, slate and broken rocks. I hear, while writing this letter, that the diggers are rushing the stores at Derby, which is quite likely as most of them had jnst enoagh provisions when thsy left here to take them down. I am, (bo., Hast Ui>t.