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NotTes—Cuyun! GoLp MINING DistRICct. 717 
houses is guarded by a watchman who delivers to the 
carriers from the camps in the bush, the various stores 
ordered by the manager for the time being ; and though 
1 do not wish to libel any of these watchmen, it must be > 
here recorded that one and all have a curious fondness 
for old, empty salt-fish boxes and salt-pork and salt-beef 
barrels, in the immediate vicinity of their dwelling places. 
Some men have two or three, others half a dozen or 
more of these unsavoury objects near them, I found one 
man apparently so devoted to them that he had aétually 
made rough sides to his house out of the staves of these 
same barrels and when I asked him if they did not smell 
disagreeably he said “ no boss, first time dem stink, now 
“ dey sweet.” 
The road to the placers from the Pap Island landing 
is claimed, by those who make use of it, to be the shortest 
and best graded of the three which communicate with 
the placers aback. One of these starts from the Quartz 
Stone Island landing below, and the other, from the 
Waiamu landing above. These two form with the river 
as base, a rough triangle, of which the apex is the 
colle€tion of placers which are situated at no great 
distance apart. To describe one path would be to 
describe all three. The Pap Island path runs through 
flat swampy land for the first two miles, crossing one or 
two crecks about fifteen feet wide, which in rainy weather 
flood the surrounding flat to the depth of three or four 
feet. When the Cuyuni itself is full, the water rises 
higher and has been known to maintain its height for 
weeks, so that access to the riverside from the placers is 
a matter of great difficulty and hardship tor heavily laden 
carriers. After the first two miles the road passes over 
