And when you do so it's a hundred to one that you think your
own cleverness and knowledge guided you to it! Chance? Oh dear, no! From
that time forth your reputation is made as "a shrewd fellow who knows a
thing or two"; and if your find was made in a mine, you are an "expert"
at once, and can command a price for your report on other mines
commensurate with the richness of your own!
As the gold would not come to us, and my partner disliked the labour of
seeking it, we returned to Coolgardie, and set about looking after the
mines we already had. Financial schemes or business never had any charms
for me; when therefore I heard that the Company had cabled out that a
prospecting party should be despatched at once, I eagerly availed myself
of the chance of work so much to my taste. As speed was an object, and
neither camels nor men procurable owing to the rush, we did not waste any
time in trying to form a large expedition, such as the soul of the London
director loveth, but contented ourselves with the camels already to hand.
On March 24, 1894, we started; Luck, myself, and three camels - Omerod,
Shimsha, and Jenny by name - with rations for three months, and
instructions to prospect the Hampton Plains as far as the supply of
surface water permitted; failing a long stay in that region I could go
where I thought best.
To the east and north-east of Coolgardie lie what are known as the Hampton
Plains - so named by Captain Hunt, who in 1864 led an expedition past York,
eastward, into the interior. Beyond the Hampton Plains he was forced back
by the Desert, and returned to York with but a sorry tale of the country
he had seen. "An endless sea of scrub," was his apt description of the
greater part of the country. Compared to the rest, the Hampton Plains were
splendid pastoral lands. Curiously enough, Hunt passed and repassed close
to what is now Coolgardie, and, though reporting quartz and ironstone,
failed to hit upon any gold. Nor was he the only one; Coolgardie had
several narrow squeaks of being found out.
Giles and Forrest both traversed districts since found to be gold-bearing,
and though, like Hunt, reporting, and even bringing back specimens of
quartz and ironstone, had the bad luck to miss finding even a "colour."
Alexander Forrest, Goddard, and Lindsay all passed within appreciable
distance of Coolgardie without unearthing its treasures, though in
Lindsay's journal the geologist to the expedition pronounced the country
auriferous. When we come to consider how many prospectors pass over gold,
it is not so wonderful that explorers, whose business is to see as much
country as they can, in as short a time as possible, should have failed to
drop on the hidden wealth.
Bayley and Ford, its first discoverers, were by no means the first
prospectors to camp at Coolgardie. In 1888 Anstey and party actually found
colours of gold, and pegged out a claim, whose corner posts were standing
at the time of the first rush; but nobody heeded them, for the quartz was
not rich enough.
In after years George Withers sunk a hole and "dry blew" the wash not very
far from Bayley's, yet he discovered no gold. Macpherson, too, poked out
beyond Coolgardie, and nearly lost his life in returning, and, indeed, was
saved by his black-boy, who held him on the only remaining horse.
Other instances could be given, all of which show that Nature will not be
bustled, and will only divulge her secrets when the ordained time has
arrived. It has been argued that since Giles, for example, passed the
Coolgardie district without finding gold, therefore there is every
probability of the rest of the country through which he passed being
auriferous. It fails to occur to those holding this view, that a man may
recognise possible gold-bearing country without finding gold, or to read
the journals of these early travellers, in which they would see that the
Desert is plainly demarcated, and the change in the nature of the country,
the occurrence of quartz, and so forth, always recorded. These folk who so
narrowly missed the gold were not the only unfortunate ones; those
responsible for the choosing for their company of the blocks of land on
the Hampton Mains were remarkably near securing all the plums.
Bayley's is one and a half miles from their boundary, Kalgoorlie twelve
miles, Kurnalpi seven miles, and a number of other places lie just on the
wrong side of the survey line to please the shareholders, though had all
these rich districts been found on their land, I fancy there would have
been a pretty outcry from the general public.
At the time of which I am writing this land was considered likely to be as
rich as Ophir. Luck and I were expected to trip up over nuggets, and come
back simply impregnated with gold. Unfortunately we not only found no
gold, but formed a very poor idea of that part of the property which we
were able to traverse, though, given a good supply of water, it should
prove valuable stock country. Before we had been very long started on our
journey we met numerous parties returning from that region, though legally
they had no right to prospect there; each told us the same story - every
water was dry; and since every one we had been to was all but dry, we
concluded that they were speaking the truth; so when we arrived at Yindi,
a large granite rock with a cavity capable of holding some twenty
thousand gallons of water, and found Yindi dry, we decided to leave the
Hampton Plains and push out into new country.
