The Gold-Miner True

What That Pioneering Spirit Has Done, and Yet May Do, For New Guinea

By Judy Tudor

rE New Guinea path that leads towards becoming a “gold-miner true” (i.e., a person who has been bitten by the gold bug early in life and thereafter knows no other peace) is as thorny as ever.

But whether the Army’s official re minder of the laws of Papua and New Guinea, which prohibit prospecting with out a miner’s right, will have effect on soldiers with good Australian blood in their veins is doubtful. New Guinea has a gold-mining history that is all-Aus tralian, except for a Spanish introduc tion, when Alvaro de Saavedra, in 1528, is alleged to have found traces of gold on the north coast of the New Guinea mainland, and a German interlude prior to World War I.

The Australian era began about the 1880’s, when gold was found in the Louisiade Archipelago, eastward of Samarai, and worked by Queensland miners according to laws of their own brewing. No Klondyke, Rand or Ballarat sketched such high-coloured romantic gold-mining adventure as did the con tinuous exploits of Australian miners in the New Guinea theatre of operations between that time and 1942, when the Japanese invasion suspended mining operations.

Prior to 1914, considerable border hopping went on between Papua and the then German Protectorate to the north east. Papuan prospectors shrewdly sus pected that there was more gold on the German side of the border than in Papua, and although many well-organ ised German mining expeditions tried to penetrate the Morobe district, it was left to the miners from the Australian Ter ritory to locate Morobe’s gold—and to work it.

WHEN the mining ordinances of the newly-constituted Mandated Terri tory came into operation about 1922, old “Sharkeye” Park, from Papua, was found to have employed the war years well, and was already working rich gold not far from where the township of Wau now stands. Neither hostile natives, lack of food and communication with the outside world, or the incredible moun tains he had had to cross had stopped him. With a newer knowledge of New Guinea conditions and terrain, it is now possible to appreciate more fully the things accomplished by the old-time prospector with nothing but his pig headed courage, his one-track mind, his own two legs for transport, a rifle for

defence and meat, and a few natives to carry his gear.

Air transport (which arrived in 1927) revolutionised the Morobe goldfield; and, when the richest alluvial deposits were worked out, dredges and hydro-electric plants supplanted the small miner, who then went further afield, and between 1931 and 1940 extended his search for new gold all over the Ramu and Sepik districts. In 1942, several hundred men were still making a living from these new districts, with nothing more elaborate in the way of equipment than a prospect ing dish, a sluice-box, a team of natives, or, at most, a sluice-pump. rE fact that gold is inaccessible has automatically sewn into a water tight compartment those who take the trouble to go after it. I should per haps state here that I am not a “gold miner true.” I was driven to New Guinea by a pioneering urge. I liked being there —when I could have been elsewhere and much more comfortable—for the same reason that people in another age wore hair shirts: it gave a warm glow to my ego to be living life the hard way. Fin

ally, New Guinea “got me,” and life else where seemed flabby. In other words, I became “troppo.” I absorbed gold-min ing lore because my associates were “gold-miners true,” and because I lived in an atmosphere where there was little else to absorb.

In the course of time, the perpetual seeker of gold becomes a very rugged individualist and the elasticity perishes from his ideas. One of his kinks con cerns women-kind. Antipathy for the female of the species—when she bobs up near a new mining field—survived long enough to dull my by then glowing ego when I encountered it in the raw in the early days on the Wewak goldfield.

Sporadic mining had gone on in the district for a couple of years before the first gold of any real worth was discov ered. Then, instead of the conventional claim, the discoverers pegged several miles of mining lease, and the rest of the mining fraternity—about ten, in

those days—arrived from far and wide to dispute it.

As a group, they had courage, intelli gence, good sense, a sense of fair play, and were all fundamentally honest men.

But because they suspected that piece of river to contain large quantities of gold they were prepared to do battle in good jungle style. Later, reason reasserted itself and they went their way, but while the hate was at its height, I unsuspect ingly walked into the area on the heels of my family. rE result was immediate. Here was something upon which they could all agree—a darned female to compli cate matters. A ledge on a high hill behind the creek on which they had camped was pointed out as a fine place for my tent-fly, and there I was banished.

But it was a technical error on the part of the banishers. In the still, heavy air all sounds rose to me clearly, and I

remember gratefully that opportunity they gave me, then, of acquiring an intimate knowledge of New Guinea pro fanity and at the same time an insight into the minds of men in the process of letting their back hair down. Neither experience might otherwise have come my way.

As we had all been pals together, in former mining camps, four days’ march nearer civilisation, I could not see what ailed them. So, in between reading on my bunk, I kept close watch on what transpired on the flat below, where my own men had joined in the fun.

On the third night, three natives appeared out of the bushes behind my tent and shoved three prospecting dishes, each containing more gold than I had seen before, under my nose. One of them said the master wanted me to hide it for him.

My eyes must have stuck out. All that gold impressed me, and that I should

again be considered of use to men floored me. “What name?” I asked.

One of the boys shrugged and pulled down the corners of his mouth: “Sup pose me take ’im along house, other master like look ’im.” He added that the master would be along later to col lect the gold.

The master did come and we sat on my bunk and discussed things. Life; gold—and the queer effect it had on humans; but not the undesirability of a woman on a new mining field. As he left he invited me to eat with them. ‘‘lt’s hell down there,” he said, “But if you are there, at least they won’t be able to wrangle at meal-times.” rME marched on. We established a camp further up the creek, on a ledge cut out of the mountain.

Other men came to Wewak by ship ana scnooner, scattered across the range and over large areas of country.

There followed a year of prospecting, trekking, lever and Pad fooa lor all oi us. But gradually the district passed irom its state of flux. Those who had prospected and lound nothing, departed.

The more fortunate got some semblance of order into their lives.

Our establishment was now divided into two; the old mining camp, up the mountain, and a new lease of our own, on the other side of the range. Ana towards the end of 1936 it fell to my lot to spend five weeks alone in the old camp, sampling all the joys of the lone prospector in tne raw jungle.

HAVING survived, in a more or less passive capacity, the life of a home less prospector living in perpetual rain and mist, damp clothes, musty bed ding, on a diet of tinned food and taro, and later sampled all the trials and tribulations incidental to establishing alluvial workings in the heart of New Guinea, it was considered that I might be capable of holding the fort alone for a couple of weeks. Could I?

I said, sure—hadn’t I lived and breathed mining for twelve months?

Surely Fate, with all her cussedness, could not think up any problem that we had not yet faced.

So with Nausi, who would do my domestic chores, and a boy to carry my gear back over the range, I went to relieve the member of our outfit who was beachwards bound. He was to be absent for two weeks; due to the usual New Guinea complications he was away five.

There are many men who will main tain, in the face of providence, that they like it; but I imagine there must be a mental kink in a person who genuinely prefers being alone in the bush.

When the sun went down, my world seemed to shrink until it was no bigger than the circle of light shed from the old, battered, hurricane lantern sitting on the table before me, and nothing was left except the tremendous all-envelop ing blackness. I was used to the bush, and the pitchy-blackness it took on with the setting sun, and the strange noises of the New Guinea night. It was not that —but that feeling of alone-ness, more mental than physical, that dark ness brought with it. The futile, soli tary meals, without being able to say as much as “Pass the salt”; the blank space of time between eating one’s evening meal and when it was decently possible to retire for the night . . .

I baked bread at week-ends and lived on it for the rest of the week. That, and tinned meat and boiled yam. The only culinary problem was Nausi’s nightly question—would I have my yams

“straight,” or would he “fight them” (i.e., mash them)?

IGOT up with the dawn, climbed into damp shorts and shirt and gum boots, lined the boys, and sent them on their way.

Nausi, by this time, had come suffi ciently awake to make me some toast and coffee and, during the eating of it, on nine mornings out of ten, the boss-boy would arrive to announce “Banis ’e bruk along namil!” (or “along hap”). Mean ing that the dam at the top of the creek, on which sluicing operations depended, had broken away at the middle, or sides, and that I should have to spend the rest of the morning in the boss-boy’s com pany, my shorts rolled up to their last decent limits, while we paddled around in the muddy water of the dam, tread ing down clay between the logs.

For most of the day I supervised work on the sluice-boxes, to the best of my ability, and in spare moments rounded up stray natives and tried by sheer elo quence, to persuade them to make the four-day journey to But to carry in stores for us. After the first week I checked in the cargo that was being sent from our partner on the beach.

At night I panned off the gold and weighed it; dressed two dozen assorted wounds, boils and tropical ulcers, for the boys; squinted down throats, peered into eyes, made feeling inquiries about the state of innards, and ladled out doses of castor oil, Epsom salts, quinine, aspirin and cough mixture where required.

DURING the first week, a visitor blew in on his way to his claim a day further on, and stayed the night.

He said he “didn’t like my colour.” (Malay yellow.) I didn’t care for it myself much—or what I could see of it in six inches of trade-mirror.

I replied that it was due to low fever, and he then entertained me with tales of people he had known, in Morobe and elsewhere, who had had persistent low fever like mine, and who had eventually “kicked the bucket” through an acute attack of blackwater.

Thereafter, my state of health added itself to my worries, and daily I expected the symptoms of blackwater to manifest themselves. In the middle of this period, a small bottle of Atebrin arrived from the new doctor at Wewak. Atebrin then was new, and the instructions that came with the bottle were as alarming as my fear of blackwater. I postponed the cure until such time as the men returned and they could witness the “toxic conditions” with which the doctor seemed to threaten me.

LASTLY, I was visited by one of the men from down the river who, with more generosity than sense, sug gested that I use one of their wheel barrows, which had somehow'been drag ged in over the ranges and were now resting in idleness.

I rather fancied the idea of getting a little mechanisation to bear on our min ing problems, and I had the boys cut two rough planks to stretch from the tailing dump to the face, where they were working. Then I called the two largest of them to me to explain what I wanted them to fetch from the lease down-river.

I know no Pidgin for wheel-barrow.

The nearest I could get was “wheely wheel”—a bicycle. But these lads were precisely five months removed from the stone-age, and had seen no wheels of any description.

So, when I said, “You savvy this fella wheely-wheel belong Master Harry?” they promptly replied, “No got!”

“Godammit—you all the same bush kanaka?” I queried. “Before you no

lookim this fella something belong Master Harry—’e got lik-lik wheel—now you push lm—now ’e work all the same?”

I ran up and down the bank, pushing imaginary wheel-barrows, to their great delight, but they still chorused “No got!”

Impasse! So I returned to my camp and wrote a note and, obligingly, the two trotted off down-stream. When, at long last, they returned, one wore a sheepish grin and the other, shiny with sweat carried the barrow on his back!

Until I saw that barrow in the hands of those boys, I should never have believed that one could be such an instrument of destruction, or have so wayward a disposition.

They grappled with it bravely, but it took complete control and bore them pro testingly along in its wake, or rose in its wrath like a half-broken colt and threw them. It fell off the planks, it capsized and it wobbled, and never once did they land a full load of clay and stones on

the other side —those working underneath received most of the dirt on their backs.

It became a riot. Waves of giggles rocked the lot of us— so I left them to it and went off to inspect the dam.

When I returned, they had abandoned all idea of wheeling the barrow. But one had the handles and another the wheel, and, so laden, they walked gravely across the planks and deposited the con tents on the tailing dump.

After five weeks our partner returned.

I took my Atebrin, turned a fine deep yellow—without toxic complications—and returned to the lease over the range. I had proved to the general public that I could manage a mine, if necessary; but I had proved to myself that it was more soul-comforting to be camp scribe and keeper of the petty cash in company, than general manager in lonely state.

THE beauty of progress is all in the eyes of the beholder. There is no lack of people to-day who become

easily eloquent on the subject of how civilised, and therefore “wonderful,” New Guinea will be after the war. Progress to these people is usually calculated on a basis of how many hot-dog stands and hamburger-joints there are to the acre; or how many billboards can be erected to the mile. When this sort of civilisa tion hits New Guinea there will be many new bemoaners of the “good old days”— and I amongst them.

Will the present-day passion for rationalisation sound the knell of the miner as we knew him in pre-war New Guinea?

With all his faults there was a great deal to be said for this man who, for saking the byways of civilisation, marched off into the blue to carve a life of his own choosing. When there is no longer room for him, the world will be a poorer place.

In Australia the gold-seeker laid the foundations of a nation: whatever lies ahead for New Guinea, the historians of the future must record that the same brand of gold-seeker performed the same service for that country.