THE FITZROY DIGGINGS.
FROM OUR SPECIAL COMMISSIONER
No. 4.
The probabilities being so much against the occurrence of such a favourable series of
circumstances as those I haave detailed as being necessary to the discovery of a really
payable gold-field in this district, it becomes next a matter of serious consideration how
those now assembled at Rockhampton and Canoona are to be provided for. Individual
cases of poverty or destitution are admittedly to be relieved by individual charity; but,
where the destitution affects a very large section of the community, and threatens a social
disorganisation, it becomes the duty of the State to interfere, and check the evil. As yet
everything at Rockhampton has been quiet, but the distant murmurs that precede the
storm have been heard upon more than one occasion, and crowds have been worked to
that pitch of nervous excitement that it would have required but one false move, one
wrong word, to have made them break over the the dowy line, the rubicon of order. In
this position of affairs, the land of the district naturally presents itself as the first and most
legitimate means of checking the social evil that threatens us, and of furnishing the
employment that is so much needed.
A sale of township lots has been already advertised for the middle of next month; and the
sale once over, a great number of stores, dwellings, and other buildings will be erected,
furnishing thereby the means of living to very many now here. In the interim, the staff of
surveyors that left Sydney by the Wonga Wonga, and have arrived in Rockhampton, will
no doubt be employed in surveying suburban lots for small farms. The choice of the spots
to be measured out for this purpose is a subject that will require no small amount of
consideration. I regret much that I have not a sufficient acquaintance with ordinary
tropical productions, the nature of the soil they require, and the mode of cultivation
employed, to enable me to speak authoritatively of the capabilities of the soil here for
their remunerative culture. Everywhere I have been, I have found the land to be
exceedingly rich. At Rockhampton, and in its vicinity, it consists of rich alluvial deposits,
covered with a thick coating of grass -- which, parched up one week by the burning rays
of the sun, is fetched up by the first shower, tall, green, and fresh as ever. The downs and
flats I have described on the road to Canoona consist of a black soil, fat and unctuous,
and clinging after rain to the boots of the pedestrian, choking up the wheels of drays, and
accumulating in masses on the hoofs of horses and cattle. It resembles very much the rich
black soil that so much prevails in the Liverpool Plains district. This ground, seemingly
so rich and so capable of production, is most fatally affected by drought. After the
heaviest rain, a couple of days' sun hardens the surface into a crisp crust; with each
succeeding day's heat this crust becomes thicker, cracking on the surface, the cracks
gradually widening and deepening as the drought continues, until the clods thus produced
are hardened to the consistency of brick, and entirely denuded of moisture. The soil
throughout the district may be said, then, to be a strong alluvion, more or less unctuous,
and in such a soil and under a tropical sun, I am firmly convinced that none of the cereals
would flourish. Maize might probably be reared, and in a favourable season might be
brought to perfection, but in ordinary seasons it would afford but stunted stalks and
meagre cobs. In the winter season, say for about four months in the year, peas, beans,
salads, every article of the English kitchen, garden may be raised in abundance, and with
astonishing rapidity, but one day's expo- sure to the sun's rays When their power is
renewed will burn them off the ground. Thus, when I first reached Rockhampton, in the
middle of September, one of the first things I looked for was the evidence of cultivation,
and I found as my reward a melancholy patch of what had been a month previously a
flourishing garden, but which now offered a doleful spectacle. Peas hanging dead, and
parched upon the stakes up which they had vainly climbed for shelter; beans denuded of
leaves, raisin g up their skeleton stems, the very ghosts of vegetation, black and
withered ; pumpkins trailing along the ground, vainly endeavouring to hide their tender
shoots, all that remained to them of life, from the fierce devouring rays; cabbages, with
their leaves drooping down from the stem, half burnt, and utterly disheartened from any
further attempts at vegetation; everything, in fact, showing that the season for horticulture
had passed away, even at that early period. At Archer's station, I am informed, that a
small garden is kept up, but only with great trouble and expense, the plants having to be
watered copiously, in order to preserve their vegetating powers.
European products must therefore be left out of the question, as articles whereby the
farmer of Northern Australia can ever hope to gain a livelihood; and we are thrown back
upon those crops more suited to the tropical climate they will have to endure. First
amongst these is the cotton plant, and to judge by the magnificent specimens of the wild
cotton that are to be seen growing in the greatest luxuriance on the banks of the river, I
should say that nothing more suitable either to the soil or climate could well be found. As
I am not in possession of any data as to the expense of raising and preparing such a crop
for market, I cannot offer any opinion as to the success likely to attend such a culture, but
perhaps my remarks may have the effect of drawing your attention more particularly to
this subject. Next in order come the sugar cane and rice plant, and the immediate vicinity
of some of the many large lagoons that exist here might be found to be favourable
localities for rearing them. There are very many other productions that might be
cultivated with success, the only drawback being, that but very few of those likely to
engage in farming pursuits here, understand the mode of culture necessary for these crops.
I have alluded to the fierce heat of the sun, and certainly when, at noon-day, he is almost
directly over your head, leaving you scarcely enough of your shadow to cover the toes of
your boots as you stand upright, his rays have terrible power; but with all this, when you
are once in the shade, the atmosphere is light and springy, and certainly not more
oppressive than that of Sydney. The evenings and mornings, too, are perfectly delicious;
a cool breeze sweeps in from the sea, continuing more or less throughout the night, and
making up for whatever inconvenience the body may have suffered during the day from
the power of the sun. With the evening, too, come the fireflies, darting hither and thither,
glistening and sparkling with ten times more radiance than ever was emitted by the most
brilliant diamond. The mosquitos, too, must not be forgotten -- nasty little venomous
creatures as they are -- that bite with a violence and a venom that astonish the man who
has only been accustomed to the puny and effete mosquito of Sydney. These insects,
however, have only made their appearance since the last rain -- that is, within this last
week.
Apart from the heat of the sun, the atmosphere is not more sultry or oppressive than is
that of Sydney, and the next point to be considered in selecting sites for farms will be the
existence of water for the use of settlers. Some difficulty may be experienced on this head,
but I hardly imagine that it will be so great as not to be overcome. At Rockhampton, for
instance, there is no fresh water nearer than a mile from the present settlement, and then
that water is scarcely fit to use, owing to horses and carts being driven in to load there,
and to the number of persons who are continually bathing there. To get good water the
carts have to go three or four miles farther on. A gentleman of my acquaintance has put
down a well on the flat, and though he came to water at a depth of twelve feet, it was too
brackish to drink. Farther away from the river, and in the vicinity of the many lagoons
that are to be found in the vicinity of the township, I do not imagine that such would be
the case, but that, on the contrary, I rather fancy that good water may be obtained at a
very trifling depth.
At present the squatters about here look with some jealousy upon the men, who threaten,
by their in-pouring, to make mincemeat of the noble tracts of country that they fancied
were all their own ; and in this respect the diggers here have done them very great
injustice. It has been stated by many -- in their moments of irritation at finding
themselves deceived -- that the squatters were at the bottom of the mischief, and that
they caused to be circulated the false reports whereby so many had been deluded, in order
solely that they might be provided with labour at a cheap rate. But so far from this being
the case, the squatters have done all in their power to discountenance the rush; not
because they cared particularly about individual success or failure, but because they knew
that with the arrival of the digger, their runs must depart from them. I was much amused
by an anecdote of one of these gentlemen. A party of diggers were camped at a waterhole
on his run, and one of his shepherds brought a flock of sheep down to this waterhole to
water. The diggers drove the sheep back, telling the man that they were not going to let
the sheep render muddy the only water they had to drink. This was reported to the lessee
of the run, who broke out into a Jeremiad, something after this strain: "What the
deuce do the men want here on my run? If they want gold, why don't they go and get
country of their own, and not come upon my country? The idea, too, of keeping a man's
sheep from his own waterhole! Let them go and get waterholes of their own, and not
come to mine"
This is pretty much the case all over the country, for I recollect when
the rush to the Rocky River took place, a squatter on the line of road was so much
annoyed at parties calling at his station, and camping round his paddock fence, that he
had a large board fixed up at the slip pannel on which these words were painted, "Private
house -- no accommodation." Many who read this will remember to have seen the
placard referred to. The squatters, no doubt, benefit temporarily by the presence of the
diggers, by the ready sale, and the enhanced price of the stock required for consumption;
but in the end the squatters must suffer from the contact by the curtailment of the fair
proportions of their runs.
I arrived here, per s.s. Wonga Wonga, on Tuesday evening, having reached Keppel Bay
on the preceding evening, after a magnificent run of 96 hours from the wharf to the
anchorage off the Green Hills, and that, too, in the face of northerly winds the whole way.
The breezes, however, were only slight, and once more was I favoured with an
exceedingly pleasant passage.
Rockhampton I found somewhat improved in appearance. Several wooden houses are in
course of erection for stores, &c., whilst the Government has a number of men at work
putting up wooden buildings for its officials. One or two of these stores are very large
and substantial. At the same time, amongst the dwellers in tents, there was the same
despondency that prevailed when I left here for Sydney. Numbers, who had quitted
Sydney prior to the certain intelligence respecting the gold-field being received there,
continue to arrive daily. Some few, more daring than their fellows, push on to Canoona,
but the majority go to swell the ranks of the discontented in Rockhampton, until such
time as they find a passage back to Sydney.
Everything has been quiet and orderly, though occasionally some solitary individual,
heated by drink, or crossed by disappointment, may be heard uttering threats of violence
that no one pays the least attention to. It has been said, also, that considerable destitution
prevails; but as yet it has not been made publicly known. The pressing wants of some
have been relieved by individual charity, and I cannot fail here to pay a deserved tribute
to the benevolence of the storekeepers here. Taking the generality of them, they are a
much superior class of men to those who are ordinarily found pursuing their vocation on
diggings, and they are as kind hearted as they are superior, for to my knowledge very
much distress has been prevented by the generosity and openheartedness of these
gentlemen.
From the diggings, the news continues very discouraging. Very few of those now at
Canoona are actually at work, and those few are barely earning a living by hard and
continuous work. All the prospecting parties that have been sent out have proved perfect
failures, not even the colour of gold having been obtained. On Tuesday evening, the 19th,
a meeting was held at Rockhampton, to get up a prospecting party. About £50 was
subscribed at once, and in the course of yesterday this amount was nearly doubled. At
Canoona, order and quiet prevail, even to a greater extent than at Rockhampton; and as a
proof of the feeling of the diggers, I was informed that about twenty of them apprehended
and brought down to the police camp, two men who had been creating a disturbance, and
had been violently ill-using a woman. As there was no lock-up, the police expressed
some disinclination to take the men, when one of the amateur constables exclaimed,
"Oh, never mind. If you can't keep 'em, we'll just time 'em up to a tree, and cow-hide the
pair on 'em handsome."
Of course this settled the question, and the men were taken
into custody, and dealt with by law the next morning.
As a matter of news, I may mention that two men have been drowned here, within the last
week. One of them, named John Lamb, was found lying drowned in the creek at the Flour
Mill Station, of Messrs. Ramsay and Gaydon. He had been a shepherd in their employ,
and it was not known how he got into the water. He had over £32 in money and orders on
his person, and it is supposed that he has a wife and child in Sydney. The other man was
a digger, named Riley, just arrived from Sofala. He had been out shooting, and, having
killed a duck in one of Archer's lagoons, went in to fetch it out, got cramped, and was
drowned.
Intelligence has been received here of the murder of three men, employed in lambing, at
Young's station, at Mount Larcomb, by the blacks. The particulars are not known, but the
black police have been sent out on the track of the murderers.
The rain that fell about twelve days ago caused a rise of the river, and it has been running
pretty high ever since, though for the last day or two it has been falling gradually.
Travellers are ferried over by a couple of boats, now stationed there regularly.