Page:Banking Under Difficulties- Or Life On The Goldfields Of Victoria, New South Wales And New Zealand (1888).pdf/176

Rh and will also illustrate the training which Mr. Yates gave his juniors, which, though severe, was looked back upon with feelings of thankfulness by those officers who served under him.

On reviewing my past life on the goldfields, especially that part of it spent on the West Coast of New Zealand, I wonder how I could have gone through the dangers and hardships I did. Nothing would induce me to go through the old life again. For the first six months of my stay on the Coast, I had no office. My safe was for a time at Waite’s store—afterwards removed, for convenience sake, to the Teremakau. I was continually on the move, following the different rushes. I had no home. When at the Grey I had my meals and a bed at the police camp, with my friends Broham and O’Donnell. When on the move, had to do the best I could; sometimes have a meal at a shanty; sometimes purchase a tin of sardines, and a few ship biscuits; sometimes have a meal of seagulls’ eggs, and so on. Once a week, my wife, who was living in Nelson, sent me a kerosene tin filled with home-made bread, cake, potatoes, and different sorts of vegetables (the only time we got any, none being procurable for love or money). These I took to the police camp and shared with my friends. I had to do my own washing and mending—a good deal of it, too—my stock of clothing being limited, and the wear and tear being very great. One had to be extra particular as regards personal cleanliness in those days, for sleeping in all sorts of places, and with all sorts of persons, one was apt to get more than he bargained for, in the shape of pediculus (humanis corporis). As to sleeping accommodation, I was fairly well-off when at the Grey, but when on the move I had to sleep on the damp ground—a sack under me, and my fly-blown blankets about me. I always slept in my clothes, boots, hat, and all; the saddle-bags, containing gold-dust, gold and silver coin, under my head for a pillow; the notes about my person, inside my Crimean shirt; my revolver by my side. Oftentimes I have slept on the beach on a log, just above high-water mark. I chose this airy situation to escape these pests—the sandflies, mosquitoes, and bush rats.

For the first month I had no horse, and had to do my journeys on foot, carrying a pair of saddle-bags on my shoulder. On the up journey it was comparatively easy work, but on the return trip, with 500 or 600 ozs. of gold-dust, it was no joke. Such a road too; the first ten miles beach travelling, then inland through dense bush, with only a bridle track, almost impassable in wet weather. It would have been the easiest thing in the world for a man to have popped me off from behind a tree and dragged my body into the bush—where the chances are it would have never been discovered—and gone off with the treasure. Fortunately for me the attempt was never made. Rivers had to be crossed in canoes, and the creeks on foot, in places waist deep.