QUEENSLAND.

Westport Times, Volume II, Issue 200, 21 March 1868, Page 3

QUEENSLAND.

The following letter from a miner who left Hokitika for the new El Dorado, we copy from the West Coast Times of the 18th ! Nashville, Mary River, Queensland, February 24th, 1868. Respected Fhiend, —According to promise, I here take this opportunity to address you with a few lines, and with as correct an. account of those goldfields, as far as my judgment will allow me to speak of them. This day four weeks we left Hokitika roadstead. "We had a good passage, to Melbourne ; arrived in Melbourne this day three weeks; sailed the next morning for Sydney. When we arrived in Sydney the excitement about these goldfields was very great; we had to wait our turn before wo could get a ticket for the steamers; and after waiting for a

tew days we got one for Maryborough, via Brisbane. When we reached Brisbane the excitement was greater there than it was in Sydney, on account of this monster nugget being got here, and everything looked so lively, and seeing no returning I began to think we were right; but there is nothing like a man to come and see for himself. We sailed from Brisbane to Maryborough, and arrived there this day week. Every one there was in quite a bustle ; it was reported that a first-rate rush had broken out that day fortyeight miles from Maryborough. I started with more New Zealanders for the promised land that very night, and we walked with our swags forty-eight miles in sixteen hours through the hard broiling sun, and part of the night. We reached the place quite exhausted, and to our sorrow there was no rush at all. Some evil fellow had played a trick with the Commissioner, and applied for a prospecting claim, and also received goods under false pretences from different storekeepers. After playing this trick, he cleared out, and about 3000 diggers running about the country with the Commissioner, looking out for the prospectors; but they have caught the rascal, and he will be punished. After that little affair, I came on to the Mary River Diggings. I have been here three days, and in three days I have rounded all the diggings that have been opened here different times. There is in all seven small gullies opened here, and I believe that some of them are very good. The population of this place I would estimate 9000 or 10,000 men, and out of that number I should think there was 1000 or 1200 on gold. The gullies are very narrow, and the runs in all of them except one creek. The run is only a claim wide. The last place opened is called Deep Creek for it is about thirty feet sinking, wet, and slabbing required ; and three or four claims wide. There are several acquaintances of mine from the West Coast in pretty good claims on this creek. I am going over there to live, as I think I can edge in along with some of the new chums there. I think there will be a pretty good fossicking to be done after some of these Queensland diggers, they are actually murdering the ground in Bome of these gullies. There has been a very heavy flood here a short time back, which has made the ground rather difficult to be worked by new chums- Now, I shall commence with my advice to my friends and acquaintances on the West Coast. Although things look very dark with me at present, I am not the least sorry that I came over here, because it is a very likely-looking country for many miles about, and there is such a great rush over here of the right sort of diggers that will prospect the country properly: but I would strongly advise all over there who are earning £2 or £3 per week to stop and stick at it; because, over here, if a man is not fortunate enough to drop on a payable claim, there is not the slightest chance of getting a job. The squatters are only paying 10s per week ; road laborers who have been highly recommended by some great nobleman at home, will get 4s per day, working out in the sun at 115 or 120 in the shade. That will tell you about emigration. At the same time people who have nothing in view over there might do worse than come over here ; because, if something new breaks out here, by the time you will hear of it over there, it will be almost half worked out. If I had come over here at the first rumors of these diggings, I am. sure I could not have gone wrong for a few hundred pounds; that was a month before Christmas. The gold is very nuggetty. The big nugget was got in about four feet sinking ; it was on a shelf of a reef in tho gully. I have been on the spot, and talked to the man that got it. They got another eight pounds weight in two day's after. These diggings are exactly like the Kinggower diggings in Victoria where they first broke out. I was on those diggings in the first rush; and my opinion of it is that a place could not be more like it than this place is. At the head of every payable gully here there is a quartz reef, and it appears that where they cannot find a reef at the head of them, there is no gold in the gully. This is the opinion of those long-headed fellows who spout in the hut on geology. Now, my friend, I beg of you to let my old friends know the particulars, as it will save me writing. Plenty of them might have moved by this time from where they were when I left the Coast. I promised to write to Maning and others, which I did, from Brisbane and Sydney, and also sent a few newspapers over; but at that time I did not know so much about these diggings as I do now, or else I should not have given such a glowing account of them. I shall write to you again as soon as I am better acquainted with

the state of affairs; or if there should be another rush of some good andextensive ground. The diggers are coming in from all parts in hundreds, and the general cry is it is over rushed. Some go right back to their old quarters, and some out prospecting. I will now conclade, hoping that these few lines will find you and Mrs Evans and the son enjoying good health, the same as myself, at present, thanks be to God, with kind respects to you and all friends. I remain, Tours truly well-wisher, Robt. Hughes. To Mr J. Evans, Red Lion, Hokitika.