Page:Through South Westland.djvu/62

20 habit spent his days delving and washing in his creek. Most of them nowadays subsist on the old-age pension of ten shillings a week, and perhaps the kindness of friends—but ready always to give a welcome to the passer-by. Some of these old men could tell strange tales of old Australian days, when life ran hot and furious in the saloons and on the race-courses, and money went as fast as it came—there was always the lucky chance luring men on. A man might arrive at night worth his £500, and leave the little township next day without a penny. And if they played hard, they worked hard too, and endured hardships and privations little heard of nowadays. In the end the successful ones went back to civilization, or took up land and settled down with wife and family. The failures drifted away, leaving a few old derelicts, whose ties were too long broken to be mended, and the mate they worked with dead and gone. But Ross has gone ahead since those days, and gold-mining demands all the latest machinery, and sluicing on a vast scale is carried on. We came in for a very wet day during our stay, and I spent it climbing about behind the town among the old workings, where chasms yawned whose bottoms were filled with black waters, and where one scrambled over mountainous heaps of broken rock and débris. In all directions the hills were gashed and rent by the power of the sluicing hose. Here and there, amid blackened stumps, some forest giant still green held up