‘cabbage-tree’ hat, and rode along till I came to a tent. Hailing the owner thereof I said, ‘What have you for dinner?’ ‘Bacon, damper and tea,’ was the reply. ‘All right,’ I said, ‘you provide the bacon and I'll provide the eggs.’ ‘Eggs, be d———d!’ was the reply. ‘Well, here they are, old man. Give me the frying pan and I’ll fry them,’ which I did and in less than five minutes we were both sitting down to a sumptuous repast.”
Anent the hardships suffered at this period by the pioneer prospectors, Preshaw says: “The greatest scourges on the opening of the Coast were sandflies and mosquitoes. They were quite unbearable. The only remedy the diggers could adopt to rid themselves of these pests was to rub the face and hands with bacon, which was by no means pleasant. With the increased facilities for communication with one point and another, it would appear strange to narrate in detail the numerous difficulties and hardships the pioneers of Westland had to contend against. When boats or bridges were things unknown, scarcely a day passed without hearing, ‘Poor so-and-so is drowned’ in some creek or river. The wonder is that the number drowned was not greater. Many stout, hardy fellows were missed; lost in the bush and perished by starvation, drowned, or killed by accident—for at that time there were no bushrangers on the Coast, gold not being plentiful enough to induce these demons of society to
