Page:Rambles on the Golden Coast of New Zealand.djvu/85

Rh consideration the circumstance that we were unprovided with knives and forks, it can easily be conceived how, with these impedimenta, there was, in the handling of ham-bones or legs of mutton, some difficulty experienced in paying proper attention to the usual amenities of the tea-table. One of the party was missing altogether, but he revealed his proximity by the smoke of a large bush fire which he had organised, several degrees too near the camp to be either safe or pleasant. He was just visible in the midst of its smoke, and, when gently remonstrated with for his insane behaviour, he said something like “Hang it!” and plaintively added—“This is the first five minutes’ peace I have had all this day.” Poor fellow!—he was much to be commiserated. He had tried salt water, and he had tried soap, and he had tried—I regret to say—some hard swearing; but all were of no avail. Here he had now burnt a good quarter-acre of scrub, and, standing, with his arms folded, in the midst of the smoke, he compared himself to Alexander the Great. He had made a desert, and he called that peace!

One of the party who had been several miles up the Hokuri Creek, brought back with him some samples of clay-slate and cement; and in the morning a number of us started to “prospect” the locality. The Hokuri is by no means such a small stream as the use of the word “creek” would imply, and it required some agility to walk up along its bed or by its steep bank of gravel wash, without getting precipitated into a hole which might necessitate swimming. About a mile and a-half up the stream we came to a cliff 200 or 300 ft. high, and from which there had been an extensive slip of soft clay-slate. This deposit underlies an older “wash” than that formed by the present stream, and it looked a likely enough bottom upon which gold might be obtained. The diggers tried a few prospects, but were unable to raise the “colour,” and as it began to rain heavily, an elaborate examination was not to be expected. From the appearances, it is possible that this formation extends towards Big Bay, and it is a formation with which the diggers were better pleased, with regard to the prospects of gold, than that of any of the other localities which they had cursorily examined.

As the fine weather we had had was apparently at an end, and there was a danger of the wind setting up a sea, which might cut off the possibilities of retreating to the “Geelong,” we started for the mouth of the river, leaving directions for the digging party, who were expected to return from the head of the lake, to follow at once.

As we re-entered the river at its source from the lake, we tried the depth of water from side to side, and found that there is a considerable area of bank on the western side of the lake covered with only three or four feet of water; but in the proper channel, on the east side, we could not touch the bottom with the 10 ft. boat-hook, and there was apparently ample width of channel for the passage of any vessel capable of crossing the bar at the river mouth. At this point the river is about three chains wide, and it maintains an even breadth for some distance down. The banks, more especially on the left hand side, are steep, and between 30 or 40 ft. high—too high to admit of the flats being, by any chance, flooded. On the other side there is a bank of similar gravel wash, but scarcely so elevated. At different points, on each side, some of the party landed, to