Yours,
CROSBIE WELLS
Dunedin. November 1854
Sir do you feel as if you know me or could pick me from a crowd? It struck me lately that I know your likeness though you do not know mine. We are not so dissimilar in our physique though I am slighter I think & my hair is darker than yours & folk would likely say that yours is the kinder face because my expression is too often sullen. I wonder if you walk about & think of me & if you search for fragments of my features in other people’s faces or their bodies when they pass you by. That is what I did every day while I was young & dreaming always of my father & trying to piece him from all the faces I had known. How comforting to think of all that unites us as brothers living at the end of the world. You are the subject of my repeating thoughts today.
Sincerely,
CROSBIE WELLS
The next letter in the sequence was much crisper, and the ink much brighter. Moody looked at the date, and noticed that nearly a decade had elapsed since Crosbie Wells’s last correspondence.
Dunedin. June 1862
Sir I will renew my correspondence to inform you very proudly that I write this as a married man. The courtship was a very short one though I believe the script followed conventional themes. In recent months I have been digging the gullies at Lawrence & though I have amassed a ‘competence’ I am yet to truly strike. Mrs. Wells as I must call her now is a fine specimen of the female sex & one I shall be very proud to carry on my arm. I suppose she is your sister now. I should like to know if you have a sister already or if Mrs. Wells is your very first. You shall not hear from me for some time after this for I must return to Dunstan in order to provide for my wife. What are your thoughts on the gold rush I wonder. Recently I heard a politician speak who called the gold a moral scourge. It is true that on the diggings I have seen much degradation but there was degradation prior to the strike as well. I fancy that it is the thought of men like me becoming rich that has most politicos afraid.
Cordially,
CROSBIE WELLS
Kawarau. November 1862
Sir I read in the papers that you are recently married for which I offer my heartiest congratulations. I have not seen a picture of your wife CAROLINE née GOUGH but she is reported to be a very fine match. I am happy when I think that we will both spend our Christmases as married men. I will journey back from Lawrence to spend the season with my wife who keeps her lodging in Dunedin & does not come to the diggings as she cannot bear the mud. I have never become used to Christmas in the summertime & feel the tradition as a whole is suited best to the colder months. Perhaps I blaspheme to talk of Christmas so but I esteem that there is much that does not retain its meaning here in New Zealand seeming instead like a faded relic from another time. I think of you receiving this letter & sitting down beside the fire perhaps or leaning close into the lamplight to make out the words. Permit me to invent these details it is a great pleasure always for me to think of you I assure you that I remain, from afar,
Yours very truly,
CROSBIE WELLS
Dunstan. April 1863
Sir I have passed this week in a melancholy humour wondering if Alistair Lauderback our father is yet deceased as I expect he is. London seems but a dream to me now. I recall the smoke & fog & cannot trust my own memory at all. As an experiment last week I sat down & tried to draw a map of Southwark in the dirt. I hardly could remember the shape of the Thames & no street names returned to me. Is it the same for you I wonder? I read in the ‘Otago Witness’ with some astonishment that you now style yourself a proud Cantabrian. I feel English through and through.
Yours,
CROSBIE WELLS
Kawarau. November 1863
Sir I like to think that you receive my words with pleasure but am content with the more probable event that you do not read them at all. In either case writing is a comfort to me and gives shape to my days. I read with interest that you have resigned the Superintendency. The word upon the diggings here is that Canterbury is soon to have her rush in gold following Otago’s fade & I rather wonder whether such a discovery would make you regret your decision to step down from that eminent position. The reward offered for a payable goldfield has excited more than one man upon the fields here at Kawarau. The land is steep & the sky very blinding here. I have been sun-burned so often that the shape of my collar has been branded into my neck & though this is painful I do not look forward to the winter months which in this high country will be bitter indeed. If gold is discovered in Canterbury will you run for the Super again? I do not mean that as an interrogative in the proper sense just as an expression of my curiosity in the course of your days. It is in this spirit that I sign myself
Sincerely,
CROSBIE WELLS
Kawarau. March 1864
Sir I write with most important and indeed astonishing news. I have been in Dunstan where I hit upon some extraordinary luck a claim veritably shining with the colour! I am now a wealthy man though I have not spent a penny of it having seen too many fellows spend their dust on hats & coats only to return those items to the pawnbroker’s when their fortunes change again. I will not tell you the amount for fear this message is intercepted but I will say that even by your handsome salary it is an enormous sum & I fancy that now I am the richer brother of us two at least in terms of ready money. What a lark that is. With this fortune I could return to London & set up a shop but I will continue to prospect as I believe my luck has not yet run dry. I have not yet declared the ore and have chosen to export it from the goldfields via a private escort which I am told is the safest route. Notwithstanding the alteration of my fortune I am, as ever,
Yours,
CROSBIE WELLS
West Canterbury. June 1865
Sir you will notice from my postmark that I am no longer a resident of the province of Otago but have ‘upped my sticks’ as the saying goes. You most likely have had little cause to venture west of the mountains so I shall tell you that West Canterbury is a world apart from the grasses of the South. The sunrise over the coastline is a scarlet marvel & the snowy peaks hold the colour of the sky. The bush is wet & tangled & the water very white. It is a lonely place though not quiet for the birdsong is constant & very pleasant for its constancy. As you may have guessed already I have put my former life behind me. I am estranged from my wife. I ought to tell you that I concealed much in my correspondence with you fearing that if you knew the bitter truth about my marriage you might think less of me. I shall not trouble you with the details of my escape to this place for it is a sorry tale & one that saddens me to recall. I am twice bitten three times shy which is a less admirable ratio than other men can boast but suffice to say that I have learned my lesson. Enough upon that subject instead I shall speak about the present & the future. I mean to dig for gold no longer though West Canterbury is flush with colour & men are making fortunes every day. No I will not prospect & have my fortune stolen once again. Instead I shall try my hand at the timber trade. I have made a fine acquaintance of a Maori man Terou Tow-Faray. This name in his native tongue means ‘The Hundred House of Years’. What poor names we British fellows have compared to these! I fancy it might be a line from a poem. Tow-Faray is a noble savage of the first degree & we are fast becoming friends. I confess it lifts my spirits to be in the companionship of men again.