Sydney Morning Herald 20 April 1859

A VISIT TO THE WESTERN GOLDFIELDS.

BY OUR SPECIAL REPORTER

No. 25.

AT Ben Bullen I fell in with a party of diggers who had been employed sluicing some distance below Maitland Bar, on the Meroo, and were now on their way to Sydney, having realised a sufficient sum to enable them to embark in some occupation less laborious than gold-digging. I remembered having seen this party at work on the river, and then gathered from them that they were doing very little, and contemplated giving up their ground. I remarked at the time that from the situation of their claim below an angle of the stream, and the indications, it ought to pay well, or I was much deceived. It is incomprehensible that diggers, as a class, should entertain a disposition to disparage the gold-fields generally, particularly when their claims are secured to them, and they can derive no advantage from making a secret of their success. They do a positive injury not only to the country, but more especially to those who have embarked their capital in commercial pursuits, and must suffer loss from any attempt to limit the population. It is as unfair to the trader to depreciate a gold-field unjustly as it is unfair to the digger to draw him to it by an exaggerated statement of its capabilities. On the richest gold-fields, during their best days, many, from physical disability to labour and other causes, could not make their rations; many others, with every ability and disposition to work, merely earned a subsistence; and a few, often the least deserving, made fortunes, and so it will be to the end of the chapter. An instance of this kind has recently come to my knowledge, which is a case in point. A party of seven men, on their return from the Rockhampton stampede, were forwarded by the diggers' relief committee to the Western gold-fields, and supplied with ration-tickets addressed to Messrs. Tibbits and Gulley, of Mudgee. These men stumbled upon the Upper Meroo in their wanderings, and set to work near Mr. Spicer's property; finding that their tickets were not available they paid for their supplies, and one of them at the time exchanged 120 English sovereigns for notes with a storekeeper named Murray. He heard no more of the party for nine weeks, when they sold him 20 ounces of gold, having previously sold 20 ounces elsewhere. Four or five weeks subsequently they again sold him 51 ounces, and one of the party admitted that they had still 170 ounces in their possession. Some days afterwards they left the Meroo, with the intention of going to California; and a gentleman recently arrived from Sydney states that he witnessed the same party deposit three large bags containing gold in the hands of the landlord of an hotel for security, and that these same men denied their having been forwarded by the committee, and lost no opportunity of representing the Western gold-fields, and the Meroo in particular, as being utterly worthless. The Meroo gold realises the highest price in the market, and, estimating it at £3 17s. 6d. per ounce, this party obtained £1050, or £150 each by their three months' labour on these worthless gold-fields. I am not suprised that they should deny having been sent up by the committee, as men with £120 in their pockets would naturally feel some shame at having availed themselves of a charitable fund contributed by the citizens of Sydney at a season of severe commercial depression for the relief of the truly necessitous. For the credit of our own diggers, I must add that these men were from the

'other side',

but originally from the land to which they are returning; and it is to be hoped that, when they are narrating their short experience on our gold-fields to their countrymen, they will not omit to state the means by which they reached them. While retracing my route to Tabrabucca, I overtook two drays, laden with the goods and chattels of two families, who were removing their household gods from Sydney to Palmer's Oakey, of which the male members of the party had some experience, and were so well satisfied that they were about to take up their permanent residence in that beautiful district. I recognised in one of them a digger who was working a rich claim on Butcher's Point when I passed through in November last, and was much pleased to see that he had turned his good fortune to so profitable an account. Women, children, and all, seemed happy in their anticipations of the future, and afforded a pleasing contrast to the wretched careworn men I had met with on my way down. And now we have left the highway, and are again in the wild ranges. We are once more at home in the wilderness, and our old friend Bocople stands before us; but we now approach him from the eastward, and as we clamber up his steep side directly under his bald green crest, come upon a fine example of basaltic columns, in no wise differing from those to be seen at the Isle of Staffa, or the Giant's Causeway. I had been informed by parties, worthy of credit, that caverns are to be found in the vicinity containing large quantities of sulphur, others contain alum, and others sulphate of magnesia. I was unsuccessful in my search, and have since learned that I was on the wrong side of the mountain. Ascending the main range now and following it to the southward for seven miles, you have the head of the basin of Campbell's Creek under your right hand, and the declivities leading to the rich mountain flats, in the neighbourhood of Tabrabucca under your left. Forcst trees here are particularly luxuriant in their growth, although inferior to those to be found on the alluvial lands and mountains nearer the coast; but as you descend into the schistose felspathic formations, and advance to the westward, timber deteriorates and becomes of a less useful character. Here the track, turning to the westward, conducts you along the crown of an extremely narrow ridge, which, separating the south side of the basin of Campbell's Creek, from a rocky gorge of tremendous depth, which forms one of the heads of the Crudine, unites the main range with the auriferous plateau; and here also you see the last of the coarse red sandstone conglomerate, of which vast blocks overhang the gorge on either side, weathered into the most grotesque forms, and coins without number. Turning your back upon the main chain of the Cordilleras, and, ascending the ridge forming the rim of the plateau, you commence a gradual descent. The first two miles of the road conducts you over a calcareous sandstone formation, succeeded by a coarse conglomerate, which, as you advance, still descending, imperceptibly wears away and finally disappears. On the right hand, on the rim of the plateau, is a conical mountain, chiefly remarkable for the perfect symmetry of its contour, overhanging the descents to Campbell's Creek; it rises 1000 feet above the surrounding ranges, and its bright green summits can be distinguished at many miles' distance. In the streams having their source at the base of this mountain and tributary to Campbell's Creek, gold has been recently discovered, and two or three parties are now at work in the vicinity, with every prospect of success. We are now travelling over a coarse clay slate, and two miles further quartz reefs become frequent, taking the usual southerly direction. As we advance we see one of those little cropless farms among the hills, and the country to the southward expands into open, undulating plains. I here remarked that the mimosa was in great abundance, and produced a gum in every respect resembling the gum arabic of commerce, of which a single person could collect several pounds weight a day at this season. The ridges forming the Pyramel Range, formerly described as sinking into Campbell's Creek, and being highly auriferous, rise to the northward; and three miles further, still descending into the quartziferous schists, occasional trappean mosses becoming visible through denudation on low ridges, and the auriferous indications increasing at every step, you arrive at a large farm of Mr. Suter's, and the old Pyramel gold-field. This gold-field, discovered and worked at a very early period, has as a whole never been very productive; the yield was irregular, and a few rich claims attracted a large population in the first instance, which it lost during the exodus that followed the discovery of the richer fields of Victoria, and which it has never since recovered. A few of the old diggers still linger on the ground, making average wages, and a few others have directed their attention to farming on a small scale; their improvements are of the rudest and most temporary character consequent upon the insecurity of their tenure the land being still in the hands of the Government. The best potatoes in the colony are said to be the produce of this district. The soil and climate is also favourable to the growth of cereals, particularly wheat, of which I saw some excellent samples. There is a deficiency of water during a very dry season but this could be easily remedied by the construction of dams in favourable situations, and irrigation is practicable over a large area of the plateau. The importance of dispersing a portion of our labouring population over lands if this class will be appreciated when it is considered that last year, notwithstanding the increase in the production of the gold-fields, which may be valued in round numbers at £1,000,000 (one million sterling,) one-half of that vast sum was appropriated to the purchase of breadstuffs of foreign growth, while the cry of distress from the unemployed has never ceased in our cities. A general dispersion of the people at the caprice of each individual over the boundless waste which comprises the territory of New South Wales, would only add to the social evils under which we already groan, and would render Government under any conditions impracticable. Let those who doubt the fact look at the insecurity of life and property; the ordeal of blood, anarchy, and confusion that every State founded by the American Union has passed through; let the sceptic watch the progress of the blood-stained wave as it rolls westward from the Mexican frontiers to the shores of Lake Superior; look at Texas, Arkansas, Kansas, and Missouri, and profit by the sight. Let us devote certain sections of our territory to that class of occupation to which it is best adapted by climate and situation, and extend each in accordance with the requirements of an increasing population, giving horny-handed labour every advantage which he has a right to expect in a new country, and capital that protection and security in the exercise of its rights, without which it would be soon diverted from our shores.