the first great rush, and for a time numbers preponderated there. Kanieri, Eight-mile, Big Paddock, Blue Spur, Waimea, and many flats and gullies supported a bustling, tireless population of many thousands. All along the beaches to Greymouth and up the Grey River, and from there to the Teremakau, the busy hive of workers could be seen.
“The mining camps extended from the Grey along the beaches past such marvellous rich patches as Darkey’s Terrace, along to Brighton, Charleston, Addison’s Flat, the terraces north of Westport to the Mokihinui, and along the beaches and gullies still further north, and then up the Buller, past many rich streams to the Lyell, where the biggest nuggets on the Coast were found, and still on to the Maruia, and the Matakitaki.
“South of Hokitika was the great Totara goldfield, and the celebrated Ross Flat, probably the richest piece of alluvial ground yet discovered in the world, layer upon layer of alluvial wash, all carrying gold in large quantities. Then we have the Okarito goldfield, with the Three-mile and Five-mile Beaches, the tail box of the Waiho River, and still further south the famed Gillespie’s Beach, Hunt’s Beach, and Bruce Bay.
“Gold was found everywhere, and in amazing quantities. At the Five-mile diggers carried the gold dust to Okarito to sell in billies, their ordinary chamois leather gold-bags being too small to contain their rich harvests. It was a life of wild exertion and fierce excitement, which has no counterpart in these somewhat dull and decorous times. Those were glorious, riotous days, which seemed so good that no one believed they could end. Each one had secured the purse of Fortunatus, which could never be finished, and acted accordingly. There was an axiom, in which implicit reliance was placed in those days, that, if a man became saving and economical, his luck would desert him. It was not necessary to spend everything he got, but, above all things, he must not be mean. Illustrations of this were furnished wholesale. The steady, industrious man would be haunted by ill-luck, whilst the spendthrift always sank a golden hole, and never a duffer. A man would be making twenty pounds a week; by Wednesday he would be without a shilling. Saturday
