knew not what they did. Fancy ‘working’ two treacherous bars in one day. Man alive, the odds were a million to one against working one, let alone two!” He spoke, too, of Big Revell and how he made Price his partner “feel worse than a wet week,” when upon receiving his apology he admonished him for striking him with a shovel—and so on, and so on. Some day the story of “Honest John” Hudson (and of other pioneers, too) will (and should) be written and then, and only then will posterity realise the debt of gratitude they owe these sterling men.
Concluding this section of Old Westland it is necessary to state that by the end of 1864 about 2,500 ounces of gold had been shipped to Nelson. Of this 1,200 ounces had been obtained by four men, who, working quietly at Watson’s Creek, two miles south of the Grey, had won this amount in less than four months. At a later date they cleaned up a further 600 ounces, and then returned to Ireland from whence they came. On these sons of Erin fickle fortune had smiled. As far as could be ascertained the population on the Westland (or Canterbury) goldfields was 830 at the end of 1864.
