Pay Dirt

<DIV><I>Pay Dirt: &quot;The Westland Goldfields</I> from the diary of William Smart' is the fascinating story of how payable gold was discovered in West Canterbury and of claims to the government&#146;s rich gold reward. It tells how English settler William Smart left Christchurch in 1862 to prospect for gold in the uncharted wilderness of the West Coast. Then in 1887 long after the Canterbury government had granted another prospector the reward which Smart regarded as rightfully his he was provoked to write his own &#145;history&#146; of the early gold discoveries. &#145;The Westland Goldfields&#146; was his attempt to set the record straight; but incidentally he produced a unique eye-witness account of early Pakeha on the Coast prospecting alongside Maori braving the hazardous environment isolation and ever-present risk of starvation &#150; before the region was overwhelmed by the gold rushes of the 1860s. Smart&#146;s account together with his drawings is published here for the first time.</DIV>