When the train came to a stop on our arrival at the Cross, as it is now usually called, I must confess that I was not much attracted by the appearance of the place, for anything more dreary-looking one could not well see. Imagine a sandy desert, with here and there a stunted-looking tree, a string of camels, with Afghan guides, some bare-looking houses, and a few mines with poppet-heads standing out like crosses against the sky. That is Southern Cross. The train stops at 7 A.M. for 40 minutes for breakfast, and, after travelling from five o’clock the previous night, one feels inclined for hot coffee at least. I hurried across to the hotel, and after partaking of a really excellent breakfast, felt a little more friendly to the place, and had my luggage taken off the train with the intention of stopping here a day to make inquiries. After a two-hours rest I started off to see Fraser’s Mine, and then found that I had to walk half a mile in order to reach the town, the part where the hotel is being only the railway portion of it. Across flat uninteresting ground affording very scanty herbage to a few grazing goats, I came at last to the town proper, which is one fairly long street and two cross ones, of little houses and shops. I here presented my letter of introduction to the mayor, who, with his wife, was most hospitable; and, in fact, I found that, in spite of the dreary-looking surroundings, Southern Cross was not a bad place after all, and that there were a great many nice genial people living there. Fraser’s Mine is another two miles on. Nothing much is to be seen, but close to the mine is a small empty house. It is the house formerly inhabited by the notorious Deeming (who murdered and cemented three wives and four children), in which he had stored the cement in readiness for a new grave for his next wife when he was stopped by his arrest. I looked inside with a kind of morbid interest, remembering well the stir there was in Melbourne at the time when this terrible man committed his last awful crime.
When one thinks of the hardships people had to endure when gold was first discovered in this desert, and when water was scarce and food still more so, one feels that they deserved all the money and gold they got.[2] It then took four days to get to the Cross from York and Northam, and the Bush roads were terrible. One party of fifty Victorian miners started from Albany on foot, on what was known as Holland’s Track, and after undergoing terrible privations, 35 of them reached the Cross in safety. Holland’s Track is so called from the following circumstances: John Holland and party set out from Brown Hill, 103 miles from Albany, to reach Coolgardie viâ Southern Cross, the distance being nearly 350 miles. They paid £50 for three horses and a conveyance. Their road was through an almost impenetrable bush. Holland’s way of finding the road was to ride ahead, the team having instructions to follow his tracks. He then made observations from the highest points, and was enabled to judge many miles ahead the nature of the country before him and the probable whereabouts of water. In this respect he was singularly successful. He would then take his bearings, retrace his tracks, and lead the team in as direct a line as possible to the place. The length of the track cut was 230 miles. The greatest portion of this was through country unexplored, and 130 miles were traversed without encountering tracks of any description, save that of an occasional emu. There were many high granite rocks in the country, one of such height and extent—200 feet—that they named it King Rock. On investigation a splendid supply of water was found on the top of this, and at the base there is a salt-water lake 2 miles in circumference.
Another party started overland from Adelaide to the Western Australian goldfields, and went through hardships that can be better imagined than described. The course taken was from Port Augusta along the west coast to Israelite Bay, thence to Fraser Range and Southern Cross. The track ran through dense forests and sand plains, where little exists save stunted herbage, which not even a camel could eat, every bush on these plains being armed with thorns. The party camped about 6 miles from Southern Cross on the only decent patch of pasture for 100 miles.
A Bendigo miner, with his party, started from Narrogin, beyond Broome Hill, for Southern Cross. After going 15 miles they got bogged twice on the road, the horses being in the bog to their knees and the dray to the axle. The second time the men had to carry all their things on their backs. Next day they had to cut away with an axe big trees that had fallen across the track. Another day they camped 100 miles from the Cross, and on getting up early found the horses gone. After a long search of 15 miles, during which time they had nothing to eat, they finally found them. Next day the party set out again, and after 25 miles the axle broke and the dray became a total wreck; they then waited coming events, and luckily a teamster came along and took some of their things. The rest they had to leave behind. They arrived at Southern Cross after three weeks travelling.
TEAMS RETURNED TO SOUTHERN CROSS FROM COOLGARDIE
These are a few of the experiences of the early days of the Golden West. After such experiences Southern Cross, no doubt, seemed an oasis in the desert. Who will say these poor men did not deserve success? I truly hope they got it. It was five years after the discovery of Southern Cross that Coolgardie was discovered by Arthur Bayley, who had formerly been working at the Cross, but afterwards went to Nannine and took 1000 ounces of gold from a claim there; then returned to the Southern Cross in 1892, started from that place prospecting, eventually finding Coolgardie.
People who were here in 1892 tell me that when the news came of Bayley’s find the excitement was indescribable. Southern Cross was almost deserted. Coolgardie lies about 120 miles from the Cross, and along the track were to be seen men in scores, using every means of locomotion conceivable. Some were lucky enough to get teamsters to carry their swags; others had to carry them on their backs; others, again, had pack-horses; some had what is called a “one-wheeler” cart. The wheel is fixed underneath, in the centre is a frame or miniature platform, on which the goods and swags are placed; four men take hold, one at each corner, and a start is made. One enterprising man pushed in front of him an ordinary beer cask, which he had rigged up to resemble a miniature road-roller. His goods were on top and he was in the shafts. Other adventurous spirits had their goods in wheelbarrows, which they drove through the heavy sand. Camels sometimes crossed as much as 22 miles of sand plain at a stretch, getting one meal at the end. As pack-camels only travel at the rate of 2½ miles an hour, such a journey would occupy the whole of the daylight, then the Afghan drivers would let the camels lie down until the moon rose; then on again in search of food, until at 7 in the morning perhaps they were lucky enough to find some salt-bush on the shores of a salt lake.