Story: Britain, Europe and New Zealand

Dalmatian gum diggers drain the Aranga swamp at Maunganui Bluff, Northland, in the late 1890s. Finding gum was heavy and painstaking work. The ground was tested for gum using a long rod, with any likely lumps then dug up. Many Dalmatians sent much of what they earned home (to what is now Croatia), and would eventually return themselves.