A VISIT TO THE NORTHERN GOLD FIELDS.
FROM OUR SPECIAL REPORTER.
No. 9.
As ever-creeping time ushers the crowd, along the dreary track that leads to the dark valley
how brief tHe journey appears to those who read his records in the crumbling rocks and
ever-changing hills. Such were our reflections as, having left the groups of tenta and huts in
Pretty Gully at early dawn, we found ourselvos again in the midst of mountain solitudes and deep
mysterious glens, on our route, for the Touloome. No human habitation was visible amongst the
trees to relieve the sense of utter loneliness that we experienced as we followed the path that
skirts the trackless cedar brush to the right on the table land; to the left was a tremendous
wooded chasm, through the depths of which the Cataract River winds to the Clarence close at hand;
and beyond, mountains upon mountains, scamed and fissured by an hundred ancient torrents, rise
to the grand plateau. As the eye wanders over the rugged grandeur and sublimity of the prospect,
and lingers in some deep gorge, endeavouring to decipher that page of earth's history which lays
spread out before us, we wonder, at the superstitions of the past, and feel that, for him who can
read her sybil leaves, Nature can conjure up no horrors. Man, proud in the magnitude of his
intellect, piercing the arcana of her hidden mysteries, discovers a first cause, and rises superior
to the crash of elements, the earthquake and the storm. Some such tone of thought engendered amidst
the Alpine heights of Switzerland must have called that magnificent conception "Manfred" into being,
with a prophetic spirit shadowing forth the struggle between mind and matter, the contest closing
with that grand climax -- "Old man, 'tis not so difficult to die."
But here are two diggers with their heavy swags toiling up the steep ascent, let us back to earth
again, and seek for dross.
These men had been prospecting the bars on the Cataract River, and are going back to the camp;
everywhere they could obtain gold out nowhere in quantities sufficient to repay the labour of
opening a claim and carrying provisions to a place so difficult of access: tangled scrubs increase
the difficulties that surround the locality. It is probable that the tributaries of this stream
will be discovered to be richer than the main channel, and when one proves payable, the whole will
undergo a thorough examination.
We now resume our journey, and follow a winding broken descent, crossing many fertile slopes and
sidlings when four miles brings us to a fine half-moon flat embosomed in the ranges, on the far
side of which is the crossing place of the Clarence, where its stream is broken by shingly bars and
islands of a considerable extent; a range following the margin of the east bank, based upon nude
flagstone cliffs and precipices, here rises from the river. The detritus in the channel is derived
almost entirely from the varied class of schistose rocks to be found in the neighbouring ranges.
Gold can be procured from the banks of this part of the stream, almost everywhere, in such
quantities as render it desirable that from this point upwards it should receive a complete
prospecting by able and experienced gold miners. Higher up inaccessible ranges appear to rise
from the channel of the stream, their line broken by occasional elevated slopes aud plains of an
alluvium covered knee-deep with a rich verdure, and sprinkled with apple trees -- a species of
timber that in this district affects the most fertile soils. Some of these plains in angles of
the river are hundreds of acres in extent, but are always backed by steep and precipitous ranges,
arid are difficult of access. In this narrow valley, without a breath of air sufficient to stir
a leaf, the heat was over-powering, and the rank vegetation drooped beneath its influence. I had
been leading my horse for miles, and yet the drops of perspiration trickled from him like water,
the poor animal tried to make the most of every patch of shade, and rushed into the river with
delight.
On the eastern bank I found two diggers resting on the margin of the stream. They had been
roaming over the district for weeks, and had done no good; it was the old story, gold everywhere,
but nowhere payable; in fact it was too hot to work, and the precious metal is seldom to be obtained
without it. One had been upwards of eight years a gold hunter, but it had always eluded his grasp;
he was also something of a politician, and traced the present scarcity of gold to the land laws,
which he so loudly denounced. Poor fellow, the disappointment often attending a precarious occupation
was rankling in his breast; he was overworked and travel worn. No more severe labour could be devised
than that of carrying his heavy swag over the interminable ranges that lay before him. When his mate
and himself reached a watercourse that promised to be auriferous they flung themselves upon its banks
too much exhausted for further labour; then looked at it a while, and voted it a shicer. They then
refreshed themselves with a pot of tea, packed up their burthens, and moved on. And this isprospecting
as it is often carried out; this is the way in which hundreds of our people waste that labour so precious
in a new country.
The production of gold has become interwoven with the prosperity of this colony; it has given an increased
value to all other departments of industry, and must be followed up; but few know at what a price this
-- prosperity has been procured -- how many homeless men it has made -- how many bright and glorious
intellects have sunk beneath disappointment and privation -- how many hearts and homes have been wrecked
in its pursuit. It may be said that men become diggers by choice; but with many it is Hobson's choice:
there is no other means by which they can obtain bread.
New South Wales owes a heavy debt to the gold-digger: she cannot do too much to reduce the uncertainty
attending his labours, to lighten his privations, and to surround him with those civilising influences,
the absence of which is now made one of the conditions inseparable from his profession.
It is somewhat curious that no person has ever suggested the idea of establishing Savings Banks, on the
gold-fields. It might be urged that it would tend to make men thrifty, and reduce the revenue; but a plague
on such cold-blooded shop-keeping policy.
It is in all such matters that we miss the noble aristocracy that we have left behind us, a class bound
to the soil, and living in the affections of the people, many of whose unsullied names have shed a lustre
upon their Country's history for ten centuries, to whom honour, and truth, and justice are as the air they
breathe. And what have we in their stead? a sort of high life below stairs, and money grubbers, who desire
to draw a veil over their antecedents, whose honour and dignity rises and falls with the balance at their
bankers, who have no other object than the accumulation of wealth - amidst the general scramble, and who
justify every trust betrayed, every act of baseness and dishonour, as did the colonial horse-boy who sold
the race "to do his self good."
It is impossible to meet a party of unsuccessful gold diggers wandering in the wilderness and hear their
tale of sorrow without being depressed. The question as to how their position can be improved is beset
with difficulties. If a limited portion of our most suitable lands were thrown open to free selection
tomorrow, at a minimum price, or at no price, a portion of our floating population would soon glut the
market with cereals and we would, as California has been already obliged to do, ere long be compelled to
throw away one half of a crop in order to be able to sell the remaining half at a profit. I am informed
that the farmers on the Lower Clarence, with all their advantages of water, carriage, are already crying
out for a market.
No matter how profitable pastoral pursuits may be, either to the individual engaged, or to the entire
body of colonists, so long as squatters cover such an extent of country with their flocks and herds,
and confine them to the wild grasses, they will be only, able to employ a fraction of the labour of
the colony. The surplus is daily increasing, and a large portion, of it without profitable occupation,
at the same time America is supplying us with cereals for which our flocks and herds and gold must pay;
in fact these interests (for we have no other) are burthened with the support of the unproductive part
of the population. So long as any part of the people remain unemployed, and a barrel of American flour
can be sold in the Sydney market at a remunerative price, just so long is their something radically wrong
in our system, and we are permitting land speculators and jobbers to fatten upon the interests of the
country.
It is said that the price demanded for labour is the true cause why we do not raise sufficient for our
own consumption. If we have a number of men unemployed, the labourer who either hires his services to
another, or, incurring all the risk himself, brings the produce of his industry to market, and will
not compete at his own threshold with produce first burthened with an inland carriage of 1000 miles,
and then with 17,000 miles of ocean transport, is either oppressed by an enormous and unnatural taxation,
or rates his labour at a fictitious value. It must be borne in mind that the breadstuffs exported by
the United States are all the produce of the labour of the free-born Saxon race, negro labour is confined
to the cultivation of cotton, sugar, tobacco, and maize exclusively.
These reflections have arisen from a conversation held with two unlucky wights on the banks of the
Clarence, deep in the bosom of the mountains. We will now proceed with our journey -- a long ascent lays
before us, and as we toil upwards two miles brings us to its summit. On one hand, directly under us, is
the river; on the other is a mountain gorge. The formation changes from flagstone to slate and shales;
we pass a small quartz reef, the crest is gained, and we stand upon a wreck of sandstone; it proves to be
a small plateau, with spurs extending their long arms in every direction, except towards the river.
Here, raised above the surrounding hills, the cool breeze is delicious; we are in another climate.
We reach the verge of the plateau. As we descend to the branch of a creek the formations previously
noticed re-appear in their regular order, the lower members are transmuted and porphyritic; the rocky
channel appears to be auriferous, but is unworked. We re-ascend an opposing strip, and are again
traversing a marked tree line; the path conducts us along, the gradually rising crown of a range for
four or five miles, when we arrive at a beautiful grassy summit -- we had been passing over loose
ironstone pebbles for some time; the summit of the range was a fine open forest, the sides were mantled
with thick scrubs, which concealed the rocky watercourses that meandered at their base; the whole country
within the scope of vision was a succession of mountain ranges and vallies stretching to the south-east,
where the sombre shades of the scrubs contrasted with the lighter hues of the open forest.
At the grassy summit we diverge from the track, and follow a faint path down the gentle descent of a
spur declining towards the river; it leads us into a thick brush, and then to the verge of a series of
deep gorges which open upon the lower part of the Touloome Creek; far below we discovered nests of
tall pines rising up the steeps in regular succession, encircled by hanging scrubs, one vast mass of
living vegetation reposed within the gloomy security of these stupendous recesses; further progress
in that direction was out of the question. Returning to the marked line we find that the green crest
forms the culminating point of the district; from this spot the country appears to decline on all sides;
following a spur trending to the northward, we pass round an ironstone ridge, and once more come upon
a dray road -- a welcome sight. Turning to the left, this road leads us down a mountain; it seems as
we would keep for ever descending, but at last we reach the bottom, near Helden's public-house, and
surrounded by stores, and huts, and tents, clustered in every imaginable, direction. We are on the
margin of the Touloome Creek, at what is designated as the Eight Mile Rush, of which we will write
in our next.