AUCTION SALE GOLDFIELDS (TIN HOTEL)
Last, but far from least, I went to the King of the Hills Mine. The farther I got away from Diorite the nicer the country looked. When I came to the King of the Hills the surroundings were really pretty. The wonderful gold got there has been obtained by sinking to no great depth. The main shaft was only 25 feet deep at the time when I saw it. Many rich quartz veins have been found in the workings, the finds being occasionally most sensational. A small parcel of 18 tons of stone was treated for a yield of 280 ounces of gold; 14 tons yielded 276 ounces, and since then a further sensation has been caused by 1 ton of quartz which yielded 116 ounces of gold. On one of the shafts large sacks of ore were stacked which fairly glistened with gold, and were expected to give as high a result as that just quoted. The mine was owned at this time by Read and party, but has since been sold to Mr. Raymond, of the Harquehala Company, for £6000 cash. After pegging out their claim, Reid and party obtained over 1600 ounces of gold, worth about the nice little sum of £6200. That, with the sale of the mine, makes a fortune of £12,000 for four partners.
Saturday afternoon brought all, or nearly all, the miners from the surrounding country into Diorite, where, as you can imagine, the hotelkeeper was kept busy. The hotel proprietor, no doubt, has made a fortune out of these Saturdays, the men having no other means of spending their money; there is no bank where they can change their gold into coin, but the storekeeper does that necessary kindness for them, or the landlady notes a score on her little slate. All the time that I was there one lucky claim-holder was falling about the place intoxicated. Some of the scenes witnessed are by no means pleasant, but I suppose the four women of the place had got quite used to them, for they did not seem to take any notice of anything that went on. Many of the men on the Saturday night become incapable of going back to their camps, and there being no sleeping accommodation at Diorite beyond the one hotel, they take shelter in any empty hut or under any cover they can find. The men are all very kind to one another, only a few fights occur, and the fighters soon shake hands and make friends again. There is no police protection, and not even a tree lock-up, so every one does pretty well as he likes at Diorite King; but when one thinks of the life these men lead, shut off in a desert country from almost every trace of civilisation, one feels that their faults should be looked on with a lenient eye. One man seemed terribly drink-sodden, and I was told he had taken thousands of pounds worth of gold as a partner in a certain claim, and his friends had tried to get him away to reclaim him, but he would not leave the place, and preferred to spend the money as he got it in the desert. Occasionally some poor miner gets lost in the Bush and is never heard of again. The blacks were very troublesome at one time about here, but there are now very few. Mr. J. Leyland, one of the original owners of the Little Wonder Mine, was killed by them about two years ago. He had gone out to look for two horses that were lost, and having found them had camped for the night at Doyle’s Well, about 20 miles off, and was boiling his billy when he noticed a bush in motion close by, and before he could arm himself two blacks sprang upon him and hit him on the head with a waddy, and then speared the horses, leaving Mr. Leyland, as they thought, dead. They then, having satisfied their thirst for blood, decamped. On the poor man’s return to consciousness he dragged himself to the horses and found one poor beast dead but the other not severely injured. He managed to mount it, and horse and rider, covered with blood, managed to make their way back to the mine. The horse dropped dead on their arrival there, and poor Leyland only lived long enough to relate his terrible night’s experience. Two men were lost in the Bush a little after this, and parties went out searching for them. One poor fellow was found dead under a tree, with his billy beside him, on the smoked part of which was scratched: “Dying from thirst; Jim tried to go on, follow him.” A horse lying dead close by mutely told a dreadful tale. The search-party, going on for many miles, at last came across a hut near a well. The hut-keeper told them he was awakened by a noise at daybreak, and on looking out saw a dark object leaning over a rough hollowed-out tree trunk (used for giving his horse a drink) and ravenously gulping down the water like a thirsty wild animal. It was hardly daylight, so he could not distinguish what it was, but knowing there were no wild animals about he ventured out to see, and found it was the other poor lost man in the throes of death. He took him into the hut and cared for him as well as he could, but it was too late, so all the search-party could do was to dig a grave and bury the second poor mate as they had done the first.
About 62 miles from Leonora is the splendid goldfields’ pastoral station, called Sturt’s Meadows, which belongs to Mr. Manuel, and consists of 570,000 acres of land. There is an abundance of water, and wells have been sunk in many parts to supply the enormous herds of stock which Mr. Manuel sends to the southern markets. The boundary of the station lies 20 miles away, and we drove 18 miles, during which we were always on the property, before coming to the homestead. Here we were hospitably received, and tasted “Brownie,” a currant loaf peculiar to this station, of which I can personally speak in the highest terms. Mr. Manuel drives four and sometimes six brumbies, and the way he gets over the ground is simply amazing.
Off by the Coach to Lawlers
CHAPTER XXIV
Lawlers—Splendid Vegetables—Waiting for a Samaritan—Mount Sir Samuel—While the Billy boils—The Kangaroo—Lake Way—Across the Country—The “Back-blocks”—Camping out—Arrival at Nannine—Bed once More—Splendid Mines of the Murchison—Peak Hill—The Gold Patch—An Old Friend—A Hearty Welcome.