The Bodies Were Taken To Adelaide, Where The Whole Country Joined In
Doing Honour To The Dead.
CHAPTER XVI
KIMBERLEY
Since we were not to retackle the sand forthwith, we laid ourselves out
to rest and do nothing to the very best of our ability. This resolve was
made easy of execution, for no sooner had the Warden, Mr. Cummins, heard
of our arrival, than he invited us to his house, where we remained during
our stay in Hall's Creek, and met with so much kindness and hospitality
that we felt more than ever pleased that we had arrived at this
out-of-the-way spot by a rather novel route.
Since Kimberley (excepting the South African district) must be an unknown
name to the majority of English readers, and since it is one of the most
valuable portions of West Australia, it deserves more than passing
mention.
Hall's Creek, named after the first prospector who found payable gold in
the district, is the official centre of the once populous Kimberley
goldfields, and the seat of justice, law, and order for the East
Kimberley division.
Attention was first drawn to this part of the Colony by the report of
Alexander Forrest, who discovered the Fitzroy, Margaret, and other
rivers; but it was not the pastoral land described by him that caused any
influx of population. Gold was the lure. The existence of gold was
discovered by Mr. Hardman, geologist, attached to a Government
survey-party under Mr. Johnston (now Surveyor-General), and, though he
found no more than colours, it is a remarkable fact that gold has since
been discovered in few places that were not mentioned by him. Numerous
"overlanders" and prospectors soon followed; indeed some preceded this
expedition, for Mr. Johnston has told me that he found marked trees in
more than one place. Who marked them was never ascertained, but it was
supposed that a party of overlanders from Queensland, who were known to
have perished, were responsible for them.
In 1886 payable gold was found, and during that and the following year
one of the largest and most unprofitable "rushes" known in Australia set
in for the newly discovered alluvial field. The sinking being shallow,
what ground there was, was soon worked out, and before long the rush set
back again as rapidly as it had come, the goldfield was condemned as a
duffer, and left to the few faithful fossickers who have made a living
there to this day. The alluvial gold was the great bait; of this but
little was found, and to reefing no attention to speak of was given, so
that at the present time miles upon miles of quartz reefs, blows,
leaders, and veins are untouched and untested as they were before the
rush of 1886. No one can say what systematic prospecting might disclose
in this neglected corner of the Colony. There are many countries less
favoured for cheap mining; Kimberley is blessed with an abundant
rainfall, and the district contains some of the finest pasture-lands in
Australia.
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