Page:Old Westland (1939).pdf/185

Rh “These were mostly from the Greenstone. Shortly afterwards over two hundred Europeans also arrived. With the advent of these people the prospectors at once made ready to proceed south to open the new field. As showing the rapidity with which the news of a new discovery travels,” continues Hudson, “no less than five storekeepers reached my place on the day following. They were: Messrs. Sweeney, Murphy, Cochrane, Waite and Ward, who were all on their way to the Totara. Waite’s bullock dray, however, was unable to cross the river with their goods and they found it necessary to send to the Grey for a boat. This had belonged to the Gipsy, wrecked a year previously, and it was brought overland by way of the beach.

“I thought it advisable to erect a store at the new diggings myself and engaged James Morton to look after my business at Hokitika, which he did until 1865, when I again took over. The rush, however, was not of a sensational character, and with the exception of good returns from three or four claims, not much gold was obtained, there being a wild stampede back to the Greenstone for the purpose of jumping the best of the claims that had been abandoned.”

It was ever thus on the goldfields, a digger with a claim averaging £10 per week (and £10 per week was a lot of money then)