Page:Discovery of the West Coast Gold-Fields Waite 1869.pdf/21

21 winds, but no notice was taken of it. I have known several vessels go to Nelson, or into Blind Bay, for shelter, from Hokitika, when they might have got quite as good under Cape Foulwind, or in the Buller.

That the Buller will eventually become the finest district on the coast, I feel satisfied. It will take time to developedevelop [sic] it, it is true, but this is rather an advantage, as no good ever came of a sudden rush; and it is not always those who go first into a place, especially when the rush is for gold, that do the best. Business gets in a confused state, and, with sending goods here, there, and everywhere, the storekeeper finds at last that they have given him the slip, and he may look in vain for his money.

There are a certain class of men on the diggings who call themselves merchants, who put on as many airs as though they were the greatest merchants possible; in fact they need to do this to make themselves somebody, and to keep the ball rolling. These are the men who have done more injury to the diggings than any other class. They start with nothing but a good suit of clothes on their backs, which, by-the-bye, is usually obtained at the expense of some tailor in the place they last left. They make a start on credit, and if they succeed, well and good; but, if not, why when their hat is on, their castle is roofed; nothing from nothing, nothing remains. When a place is quietly settled, it steadily improves itself, and such I think the Buller will now be. It has great natural resources, such as no other part of the province possesses. It has a good harbour, and close at hand stands a vast mountain of the finest coal in the world. There are thousands of acres of country yet unexplored for gold and other minerals. There is a large tract of good land along the coast, running either towards Cape Foulwind, or north towards Mokihinui; and both sides of the Buller River, as far as the gorge, are capable of growing anything. I have seen lots of wheat that was grown by Maoris when I first came to the coast, who adopted a very primitive style of cultivation. There was no ploughing or digging; the seed was merely thrown down, and a large bush harrow, drawn by four or five Maoris, with two women riding on the brush to keep it down, was all the cultivation thought of. This was at the Grey. At some of the old camping grounds up the Buller I have seen oats, and wheat, and vetches, that have been shaken from a potatoepotato [sic]-bag or something else, self sown, growing as finely as if they had been on cultivated soil. When the diggers on the old diggings up the river had settled themselves down, they dug a piece of ground and planted cabbage and other vegetables, and brought down some to the Buller; indeed I have seen some fine large cabbages at the Buller free from blight when there was scarcely a cabbage to be got in Nelson. Again, at the junction of the Inangahua with the Buller, about thirty miles up on both sides of the river, there are fine fern flats, and what will be some day in that locality a payable gold-field, when provisions are