White Hills, Bendigo Diggings, Aug. 12th, 1853.

We have quitted our quiet, green retreat in the outskirts, and have encamped in the very heart of the diggings at the foot of the fourth White Hill, and facing the Bendigo Creek. We have done this so as to be able to note more completely what is going forward on these great diggings. Below us runs the Bendigo Creek, whence the whole of the digging takes its name. The valley through which it runs is all dug up for at least ten miles. But this constitutes but a small part of the diggings. The greatest extent of these lie on the other side of the creek, in valley beyond valley,—the farthest, Myer's Flat, being said to be twenty-two miles from this spot, the White Hills; so that the diggings cover an area, at the very least, of ten miles square; and they are still extending themselves in a north-western direction.

On this side the creek, another creek, called the Back Creek, falls into it about a mile higher than where we are camped. It runs several miles to the south-west; and it was near it that we were first encamped. The valley of the Back Creek is a fine, fertile, green valley, or rather was so; but now an enormous extent of it is dug up.