Page:Old Westland (1939).pdf/233

Rh supporting a bustling, tireless population of many thousands. All along the beaches to Greymouth and up the Grey River, and thence to the Taramakau the busy hives of workers could be seen.”

Taken as a whole these diggers were splendid men, most of them in the morning of their manhood. The hardships and privations to be endured (and they were many) were simply regarded as part of their job, which was to obtain an adequate share of the “wasted wealth in wild profusion strewn” throughout the length and breadth of Old Westland.

True, many of them when doing well threw their money about, and, as noted by Reid, the hotels, and likewise the dance halls, as well as the shanties in the smaller centres, did a roaring trade. Certainly successful diggers vied with each other in their methods of entertaining, for when one made it a champagne supper (with pint bottles at £2 a time) another would, in the vernacular of to-day, “throw a real party,” with double the amount of champagne plus sandwiches, the filling of each being intermingled with a finely-shredded £5 note. The writer vouches for this statement, having been personally acquainted with the digger responsible for this particular party, who lived to a ripe old age, the filling in question in no way impairing the digestive organs.