The voices that have come from the diggings in California and
Australia have hitherto been so loud and so many, that they have
served only to confuse. We have the image before our fancy of a vast
crowd of human beings hastening over seas and deserts towards certain
geographical points, where they meet, struggle, fix. We see them
picking up lumps of gold from the surface, or digging them out of the
earth, or collecting the glittering dust by sifting and washing; and
then we hear of vast torrents of the precious metal finding their way
into Europe, threatening to swamp us all with absolute wealth, and
confound and travesty the whole monetary transactions of the world.
What we don't see, is the gold itself. We should like, if it were only
out of curiosity, to feel a handful of it in our pocket: but we grope
in vain. A sovereign costs twenty shillings, as before; and twenty
shillings are as hard to come at as ever. Nevertheless, we believe in
the unseen presence of that slave-genius, who lends himself, with a
sickly smile, to the service of mankind, and buys when we think he is
sold! We have faith in bills of lading, and accept without question
any amount that is reported to lie dormant in the reservoir of the
Bank of England: only we wonder in private whether the importations of
the precious metal are likely to increase permanently in greater
proportion than the population in this quarter of the globe, and the
spread of taste, comfort, and luxury, calling every day new arts into
existence, perfecting old ones, and distributing wealth throughout the
constantly widening circle of talent and industry.
But our present business is with the diggings and the diggers. We have
often wished we could interrogate one of those unquiet spirits in the
manner of Macbeth--'What is't ye do?' How do you manage? By what signs
do you know a locality that is likely to repay your pains? What are
your instruments, your machinery? What do you conceive to be the
prospects of your singular trade? And, in fact, our curiosity is at
this moment to a certain extent gratified: a Voice has been wafted
across the ocean to our private ear, and, undisturbed by the thousand
other tongues of the diggings, we can listen to an account, distinct
so far as it goes, of the whole process of gold-hunting. The voice
emanates from Mr S. Rutter, of Sydney, whose experience has lain both
in the Californian and Australian mines, and we propose putting
together, in as intelligible a way as we can, the rough hints with
which we have been favoured.
Mr Rutter, on the 24th of May last, left Sydney for the Ophir
diggings, with a party, including himself, of four individuals. A
sleeping partner remained behind, whose duty it was to furnish the
means of conveyance for the first trip; but the four travellers
entered with each other into a more precise agreement, the chief
articles of which we give, as being common in such adventures:--