On September 12, the anniversary of the arrival of the pioneers, a grand dinner was given to about eighty individuals at the hotel to celebrate the event: representatives of the military, civil, and business communities were bidden; gold prospectors, mining experts, men of established and questionable reputations—all were there, and the promoters underwent superhuman difficulties in catering for so many guests, and gave fabulous prices for a sufficiency of wine, spirits, and victuals properly to celebrate the occasion. It was in its initiative ostensibly a social gathering to celebrate an ostensibly auspicious occasion; but one after-dinner speech became more intemperate than the other: the authorities were loudly abused for faults committed by them, real or imaginary; well-known names, when pronounced, were hooted and hissed; and the social gathering developed, as the evening went on, into a wild demonstration of discontent. At the bottom of all this ill-feeling was the question of supplies. The previous rainy season had been passed by the pioneers in abject misery; there was no food to eat, and no medicine to administer to the overwhelming number of fever patients. The rainy season was now fast approaching again, when for months the place would be cut off by the rivers from the outer world, and the 400 waggon-loads of provisions promised by the company had not yet arrived. Lucky were those who had anything to sell in those days: a bottle of brandy fetched 3l. 10s.; champagne was bought at the rate of 30l. a dozen; ham was 4s. 6d. a lb.; tins of jam 5s. 6d.; butter, tinned meats, and luxuries were impossible to obtain; and yet when, after a few weeks, the 400 waggons did come, there was a glut in the market of all these things; plenty was ensured for the coming wet season, and there were no more mass meetings or abuse of the authorities.