CHAPTER VIII
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CHAPTER VIII.
SHORTLY after my arrival in Christchurch I was called upon at my hotel by a gentleman who had found a new track over the ranges to Hokitika, the chief town on the West Coast diggings. He came to ask me to join a party with which he proposed in midwinter to force a passage through the snow, which at that season covered the country for many miles on either side of the main range. It was with great regret that I refused Mr. Griffiths' offer; but I had previously engaged to join another party, having the same end in view, under a surveyor, who was at that time high in the service of Government. This gentleman had shared with Mr. Griffiths in the discovery of the pass. Our departure caused some sensation at the time. A large-sized dray, loaded with tools, canvas, flour, meat, and necessaries of every description accompanied us, and under it, I, with two others, made my bed every night. Passing station after station, we arrived at length at the bed of a river covered with large boulders, along which it was impossible to take a dray. This river has its rise in a low saddle, over which our course lay, and we were now compelled to use pack saddles for the conveyance of our stores to the foot of the range. An event of a melancholy nature threw a gloom over the party on the first day after our arrival amongst the snow. One of the party, a fine, high-spirited young fellow, was going out duck
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shooting for the benefit of our larder. It was a sunny, clear morning, and he was preparing his ammunition within the tent when two Paradise ducks came in view, sailing over our heads. There was a general shout from all hands for Jenkins. "Now's your time, Jenkins." Out he rushed, gun in hand, and in his eagerness to view the quarry tripped over a tent rope at the door. The gun went off, sending the charge into the thigh of one of the party who was standing within two or three feet of him. We bound up the wound as well as we were able, and one of our party, a sailor, rigged up a sort of hammock, which we slung to a stout pole. In this we contrived, though with great difficulty, to carry him back through the rivers and snow to the last station we had passed. The poor fellow died in the hospital shortly afterwards; he left a widow and several children, to whom Jenkins, who was terribly cut up by the event, made a present of £100, a large sum for him.
About a mile and a half from the foot of the pass we pitched our camp, and began to clear a spot in the snow for the erection of a slab hut. We cleared a space sufficient for a good-sized dwelling place, and then proceeded to fell and split the necessary timber, to obtain which we started into the bush at daylight every morning. Certainly, never before or since have I experienced the same torture from cold as during the hours spent in that frozen bush, every branch and leaf of which was covered with a coating of ice, before the sun's first weak rays came to mock us with a
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semblance of warmth. A month or six weeks was spent chiefly in this labour, though occasional attempts were made to cut our way up the frozen side of the pass. More than once we had reached a considerable distance above the river bed, but on each occasion during the night following the snow fell to such a depth as to fill up the footway we had taken such pains to cut in the ice with our sharp spades. A circumstance happened at this time which forced us to adopt a different plan. There had been a very severe frost one night, and by the next afternoon we attained a height of some 800 feet of point blank elevation above the foot of the pass. Mr. Browning was in advance of us, and I, as usual on such expeditions, followed close behind him; behind me, dotted like flies along the sloping side of a sugar loaf, were the rest of our own party, followed by Mr. Parks and his party, in all some fourteen hands. As we had only intended to reach on this day an elevation sufficient to afford us a good survey of the last and most difficult portion of our route, we had brought no swags with us, but were all armed with pick-axes and spades. Mr. Browning, who was of a daring and impetuous nature, trusted solely to his pick for his safety, while those behind had the advantage of the footholds which we dug with our spades, each one in turn widening the aperture, so that those in the rear could ascend with comparative ease and safety. At the request of Mr. Parks, our jolly old commander, I had just finished yelling with tremendous vehemence a verse of "The Englishman," which reverberated grandly
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among the snowy peaks; Mr. Browning was in the act of scaling a steep and almost perpendicular ridge a few feet ahead of me; when, hearing a loud shout from the rear, "Hold on, Browning; for God's sake, hold on;" I looked up just in time to avoid being swept away by Mr. Browning, who shot past me with terrible velocity, and travelled to the bottom of the pass in a few seconds. Notwithstanding that he had passed within less than a foot of a jagged rock that jutted out in his road, and had spun round and round in his descent like a top, he experienced no further injury than a temporary numbness, a few severe scratches, and the total destruction of his apparel. After this, however, we foresaw that the difficulties of ascent on that side were too great to be surmounted, and it was decided by those upon whom the responsibility of our safety chiefly devolved that a fresh effort should be made entirely in a new direction.
Accordingly, on a bright, clear morning, the whole party, including those who had been left behind on former occasions, together with Mr. Parks' party, set out from the wharry with swags packed with oatmeal, flour, sugar, and chocolate, each man's share being alike, and consisting of long narrow bags made to lie close within the blankets. After a heavy day's work we reached the summit; and, having taken a rest and a tot of grog all round from a bottle brought up on purpose, and which was thrown far and high over the cliff with three cheers, we six now set forward with our faces turned to Hokitika, prepared for
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roughing it in good earnest, whilst Mr. Parks and the rest of the party returned to the comfortable wharry which we had left far below.
After crossing a small lake and traversing a mile or so of ice valleys, we reached the head of a creek on the west side. The descent here was of a different nature to that on the east side of the range. After a gradual slope of some length, we came to a point beyond which there was no possible advance, except by a similar process to that which Mr. Browning had so involuntarily undergone before. This was to let ourselves go, and, trusting to the mercy of Providence, hope to glide safely to the bottom--the distance to be traversed before reaching a footing being, however, above a couple of hundred feet in this instance. After a hearty shake of the hand from all we were leaving, and another cheer, we one by one went down the incline as far as we could on our legs, and then throwing ourselves back shot down to the bottom without feeling anything beyond a slight shortening of the breath. And now came one of the most trying moments of my life. We were on the right hand slope of the range, and had to pass along its side about fifty feet above the edge of an abyss that fell sheer to the rocks below. The surface of the ice all along this part of the glacier was particularly hard and glassy, and every step we took had to be cut out. When Mr. Browning and I were about half way across we stopped for a moment and rested; as the labour of chopping and cutting with a heavy spade, impeded by a bulky swag, was by no means
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trifling. The rest were some distance in the rear and evidently struggling on in our footsteps with no very lively feelings. Browning and I looked below us, looked ahead, and then at each other. "I'm half sorry we came this way now, Money," he said; "but now we're here we must do our best; it's not much further, at any rate." "I suppose we must," said I, "and the sooner the better." We waited till the others came up to us, and then screwed up our nerves, and slowly but surely accomplished the intervening distance. Mr. Browning had remembered this part of his journey in the summer, when the side along which he had crawled was covered with loose shingle from landslips far above; but had avoided mention of its dangers, for fear of alarming us too soon, and what schoolboys call "establishing a funk." Once over this we had no great difficulty in rolling and scrambling to the bottom of the ravine, where lay yet before us huge rocks, cliffs, hills, and gullies covered with thick bush and deeply clothed with snow. We had seen no birds save a couple of ka-kas or parrots near the top of the saddle, who, though more than half frozen, managed to fly out of reach, and a disconsolate wood-hen, which disappeared in a snow-wreath.
Though rationed off for a short time to a pannikin of burgoo morning and evening, and half-a-dozen pieces of biscuit, we ran short by the time we arrived at a creek, beyond the regions of snow, which had been named Griffiths' Creek, after its finder. One of our party--our cook, an old sailor--had brought a dog with
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him which he assured us would catch wood-hens by the dozen, and when we had pitched camp at Griffiths' Creek, and were boiling our billy of burgoo for tea (being the only thing left in the way of food), the old chap strolled out to try for a chance of a duck, or anything he and his dog could get us. In less than half-an-hour he returned with three wood-hens and a pair of whistling ducks, which were soon plucked and popped into the pot.
A day or two of hard toil through thick bush and swamp brought us at last over a low saddle into the bed of the Styx river, the head waters of the Hokitika itself, at the mouth of which was the town of that name to which we were bound. Here we began to look out for signs of stores, which it had been arranged before our departure that we should find "planted" in the bush out of the reach of rats. After trudging some distance down the river-shed we at last came upon a pole stuck into a heap of large stones in a prominent position. To the top of it had been fastened a blade of flax, pointing into the bush on our right, where, after a short search, we discovered 100lbs. of flour, 50lbs. of sugar, tea, and oatmeal, besides a huge piece of bacon. This we soon attacked, and devoured panful after panful of fried bacon and damper, with copious libations of tea, before we threw ourselves on our beds of fern to smoke the postcoenal pipe with a sense of satiety and comfort which we had not experienced for some little time. We had expected to find also a couple of bottles of grog; but were disappointed in this, and were rather puzzled
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as to the reason thereof. Whilst we were wondering at the absence of the promised brandy, Mr. Browning shouted from a little distance, "Smoke, by heaven!" We all started towards the direction in which he pointed, and on reaching a piece of higher ground could clearly see smoke a long distance away down the river.
Mr. Browning immediately started in search of the spot from which it emerged above the trees, and just as we had finished the fifth or sixth frying-pan of bacon and slapjacks, he returned with two men, and, better still, with a bottle of Hollands, which was disposed of with the utmost celerity and without a single wry face. It appeared that a party had been sent up with the stores to plant them in the bush, and to blaze a track some distance up towards the low saddle in the direction of Griffiths' Creek. After covering the things with bundles of long grass made into the shape of half-closed umbrellas, and hung from the boughs of trees, the one who had charge of the party had arranged that they should return on different sides of the river and meet at the tent which they had pitched a few miles down its bed. Accordingly they had started, the "boss" taking with him one of the bottles of grog, and keeping one side of the stream, and his men taking the other. He had never been since seen, and the men who had come up with Mr. Browning had no idea where he was. It was now two days since they had parted; he had been traced for some distance in the bush, but his track was eventually lost sight of on the
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edge of a steep bank overlooking a creek that ran into the river. Both the creeks and the river itself had been tremendously swollen by the heavy rain which had fallen within the last few days, and they were afraid that the poor fellow might have drank too freely and been swept away by one of the torrents in attempting to ford it. We determined, according to Mr. Browning's desire, to devote the next day to helping the men in their endeavour to discover his fate; and, separating into different detachments, we followed up every creek in the neighbourhood, searching without success. Compelled at length, late in the evening, to acknowledge that there was little hope of his being alive, even if his body was not out at sea already, we all turned our steps towards Hokitika, and in two days arrived at a ferry opposite the township of Woodstock, a few miles above Hokitika itself. Here we took a storekeeper literally by storm, and cleared him out of everything except a few boxes of sardines and half a chest of tea. Another night saw us in Hokitika, our hard-earned wages in our pockets, and free to go whithersoever we pleased in search of fortune. It was strange to me, having seen that coast when no other white men but myself and my comrades previously alluded to were on it, to enter a town like Hokitika, with a splendid wharf, a court-house, post-office, police camp, and nearly a hundred public-houses and hotels already established.
A short spell, and away again across the sands to the Grey River, from whence the reports had been of late
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very attractive. The first thing I did was to look out for work, and this I succeeded in obtaining the same afternoon. The labour was similar in every respect to that of a railway navvy. It consisted in the making of a road cut along the sides of a low bush range on the banks of the river Grey. The sides of these hills, being in many places morasses, were continually sending down floods of yellow mud over the place where we worked. The surveyor in charge of the work was a thorough specimen of a gentleman, combined with the character of a rough colonial bushman. Though of very small stature, he was the fastest walker through, a heavy bush I ever came across. This I found by experience when employed in cutting survey lines with him a month or two subsequently. While camped on the edge of the river, close to the scene of our operations, we caught every day shoals of white-bait; a piece of gauze fastened to a circle of supple-jack or bush cane, much resembling an ordinary butterfly-net, was all that was required for their capture. Passing along the edge of the water, and drawing the net lightly and quickly below the surface, in an hour's time one man would catch enough to fill three or four large sized milk-pans. They are precisely similar both in appearance and taste to those of the Thames.
To describe the different peculiarities of character to be met with amongst so strange an assortment from all countries as the labourers on the bush-roads in the colonies would require the pen of a Dickens. I have
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found as much native wit and hearty appreciation of humour among those who in the old country were utterly rough and illiterate as among the polished and refined members of the most civilized society. The mind of the labouring man, dwarfed and stunted in its development by the crushing sense of inferiority at home, is enlarged and healthily braced by the freedom and independence which so strikingly characterize a colonial community.
One day, while filling my pipe, the ganger having turned the corner of the bush the moment before, I heard myself called by tones familiar to my ear, and, turning round, shook hands with my old friend, the baker of the Six-mile. Surprised to see him carrying his swag, knowing, as I did, that he had made a pile out of that business, I asked him how things had been going with him. He pulled out a fourpenny piece and said, "That's my last coin, old man." Three or four times in his New Zealand career he had made large sums at his trade on the diggings, and lost all; this had been the case since I last saw him. He had invested over a thousand pounds in some large dining-rooms in Dunedin, and, though a steady man, with a hard-working wife and children, had ultimately entirely failed. He was now on his way up to the Grey, with the intention of building an oven on the first rush he should come to, and of once more making a fair start. Having already overdrawn my week's wages, I regretted being unable to help him with a note; but as he was well-known on the diggings, I had little doubt of
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his getting on as well as he could wish. A few weeks completed the part of the road for which. Dobson had contracted; and on his asking me to join him in working a boat on Lake Brunner, I immediately agreed, and we pulled together very well. He was now engaged in making a survey line for the road, to follow round the northern corner of the lake in the direction of the Teremakau. This would eventually form the high road between Christchurch and the township on the Grey River. My work in the boat was the conveyance of the necessary stores for those of the hands, including myself, who were living with him in tents at the furthest extremity of the projected line. Meantime the contract for the making of the road itself had been undertaken by two men, under whom I engaged myself on leaving Dobson. I was compelled to work considerably harder for these gentlemen, as the wages given by private contractors are in proportion to the amount of work done. But as long before this I had acquired considerable dexterity in the use of the axe, I managed to give satisfaction, and remained on the work until it was finished.
There being nothing further to do in this quarter, I left the lake for the Arnold township, a mile or two from the banks of the Grey. Here I resumed my old trade of packing, and found plenty to keep me in constant employment. Engaged in the same occupation was a Frenchman who had been noted for carrying enormous weights up the most difficult ascents in the South Island. He was in the habit of trudging
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"through bush, through briar," under the burden of two cwt., with as much ease as a man would in ordinary-cases under a knapsack of a few lbs. weight. When it is considered that 25s. per cwt. was given for every four miles, and that we could perform that distance (including the back journey) twice every day, my readers will hardly wonder at our continuing in so lucrative a line of business, although the ground traversed was of such a nature as to make the labour treble what it would have been on any ordinary road. My average earnings were from £2 to £2 10s. per day. For some time we monopolised the market as before on the Six-mile. The game, however, was too good to last; as the supply of labour increased, the profit decreased in proportion, and I was again about to travel when an old mate arrived in the township from Lake Brunner. He brought the news that some men, of whom I had heard for some time past, had gone down to the Warden at Greymouth to take out a prospecting claim on a river at the further side of the lake. Having been in their confidence, he knew the direction in which they had made the discovery which had induced them to take this step. We delayed no longer than was required to get a few necessaries together, and with 50 lbs. of flour and our blankets were on the road next morning. The diggers who were supposed to have made this find were distinguished by rather peculiar pseudonyms. The one was called "Warregal," which is, I believe, the name of an animal in Australia; while the other was known to his friends and the public as "Kangaroo
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Jem." Although among the first to reach the shores of the lake were those of our little party, i. e., Fraser, who had brought me the news, and a few others who smelt a rat, yet the evening of the following day saw nearly 2000 men encamped on the edge of its waters, and the scene previously described on the Six-mile was here re-enacted, and on the very spot where poor Howitt and his companions had met with so melancholy an ending to their enterprise. I found that the contractors for whom I had been working had anticipated, if not organised, the rush, and had prepared for it by building a large boat for the passage over the lake of the expectant diggers, and a large store for the sale of provisions and grog for their support. Notwithstanding the good appearance that the whole affair bore on its surface, I determined to be careful how I followed what might turn out to be a mere "Will-o'-the-wisp," and I obtained places at the oars for myself and mate at the rate of £1 per trip across the lake. The boat was a sort of large whale-boat, drawing about two feet of water; it carried from forty to fifty diggers with their swags, besides the crew. Day and night, as the numbers increased, were we compelled to work; and, as fifteen shillings was the price of the fare across for every man, the prospects of the owners seemed bright indeed. After quite three thousand men had been taken over to the neighbourhood of the "rush," the run on the boat became rather less overpowering, and a feeling prevailed that news would be very acceptable from the scene of operations.
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One fine morning (I had at this time left the boat for a day's spell) we were surprised to see the boat coming over nearly full, and that instead of coming straight to land they held off shore, resting on their oars some hundred yards from us. The owners shouted to know what they intended to do with the boat, and the answer came pealing most irascibly over the water towards us, "Give up the prospectors, or we will burn and sink your boat." I knew where the prospectors were, but not knowing the rights of the case I considered it none of my business.
The owners meantime denied all knowledge of their whereabouts, and refused, if they did know, to tell their "location." The men in the boat now turned the coxswain of the boat into the water, which at that part was over his middle, and he was compelled to wade ashore as best he could. They waited some time, apparently in doubt what to do next, and then pulled quietly back to whence they had come. From that time complete possession was taken of the boat, and all who had previously gone over the lake with high hopes of making their piles were brought back with feelings of deep indignation against their deceivers. I have never felt sure to this day whether the contractors, both of whom I knew and had found good pay-masters and straightforward in their dealings, really were or were not culpably concerned in the affair; but the whole thing certainly looked like it.
It seems that on arriving at the opposite side of the lake those poor deluded people had found a frightful
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country of tangled bush, swamp, and river, so bad as to compel many of them to throw their provisions and even blankets and tents away on the road; and after many hours and, in some cases days, of hard travelling and every kind of privation and exposure, had only arrived to find the whole thing what is called in digging parlance a "duffer"--i. e., that there was comparatively "nothing" to repay them for even the trouble of digging a single hole.
After the greater part had been brought over and were once more camped on the edges of the lake, grog-tents began to spring up on all sides, and the excitement amongst the disappointed crowds became intense, and so exasperated were they against the prospectors that if they had been discovered at that time they would have been torn limb from limb. They, however, managed to keep close enough. Although I myself knew where they were located, there were not half-a-dozen who did.
Meantime I continued to work for the contractors, and got good pay for even an hour's work, while the other unfortunates were compelled to spend the little they possessed or to borrow enough provisions to last them for a time. One afternoon, when there had been a good deal of drinking going on throughout the canvas village, I noticed a look about the Irish who were collected around the store that I was sure portended some outbreak. I went over to the store to see Potter, one of the contractors whom I mentioned as having built the boat and supplied the provisions. I found
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him lying on a bundle of fern at the back part of the store, and pushed through the crowd to shake hands with him. He looked queer, I thought, and kept one hand in the breast of his blue shirt while he spoke to me. "Get me a stiff glass of rum, Money," said he; "mine's all drunk an hour ago." He tossed it off, and I had just got, glass in hand, a few yards back towards the grog-tent, when I heard a shout, and, looking round, saw the mob pouring out of Potter's store laden with every description of "tucker." Knowing that I could do nothing to prevent the row, I went with the crowd to look on. It was an extraordinary sight. There was a bearded giant shouldering a couple of sides of bacon; here a smaller but equally hairy "Knight of the pick" staggering under the load of 100 lbs. of flour and a handkerchief full of tobacco, there a Yankee "sliding" with a chest of tea, while a small and select company were sharing the contents of a huge grass-bag of sugar. In all directions were seen lucky marauders laden with hams, rolls of spiced beef or bacon, tins of coffee, and tools, tin dishes, and the other contents of a store supplied with the requisites for a "digging establishment." Ten minutes' hard work cleared the place, and another ten saw the canvas torn down for tents, &c, and the rafters, wall-plates, and fern-tree sides knocked down for fire-wood. A strange instance of irresolution was seen during the scrimmage. A man who was taking a "nip" five minutes before in the shanty that I had entered for the rum, and whom I had noticed as having a gun in his
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hand, went quietly to the beach where the large boat belonging to Potter's store was lying, and, unfastening the "painter," walked backwards into the lake, holding the rope in his hand, and pushing the boat along with him. When the water had nearly reached his waist he stopped, and, raising the gun, swore he would shoot any man who came to take the boat from him. For a moment all around seemed taken aback by the man's attitude and apparent determination, when suddenly a tall Irishman, marching straight into the water, and wading up to him, wrenched the gun out of his hands, broke it over the gunwale of the boat, and threw the pieces far into the waters of the lake. The wretched braggart shrunk away just in time to save himself from a similar punishment to that I once saw bestowed on a pickpocket at the Six-mile. It occurred on the morning of one of the first Sundays after the rush had set in. There were three lights going on at the same time and a tremendous crush in the street, when I heard a shout of "Thief, thief," followed by yells of "Lynch the beggar!" "String him up!" &c, &c. I climbed up on the highest point near me, and there I saw the poor wretch dragged by a hundred hands in the direction of a saw-pit behind the township. It was a toss-up for his life; but he was let off eventually with a fearful "hiding," and an injunction never to show his face again on those "diggings."
