THE DIGGINGS.
In the morning, having provided ourselves with tools, we made a beginning
in a small gulley near our camping place. There did not seem to be much
business doing in it, but it was nice and dry and quiet, and we had
been informed that great hits were occasionally made in very unlikely
spots. We had agreed to work in pairs, my lot falling in company with
a decent man, a hand-loom weaver to trade, from the North of Scotland.
We took spell about at the digging, short spells being in favour, as my
mate argued that “the chance o’ goold bein’ below, was’na like to be
ony greater, for oor hurtin’ oorsels, ye ken.” We agreed very well, but
a large stone that we came on about four feet from the surface, sorely
troubled us. When sitting on the top looking ruefully down upon it, and
inclined to shift to some other place, a stranger with pick and shovel on
his shoulder came sauntering up, joined us in looking down, asked what
we intended doing, and remarked that we ought at least to see what was
beneath, that many a digger would give gold to have such a boulder in his
ground, they were found to have been such grand catchers of the nuggets
when they came “scouring down in the flood.” As he seemed to have been
longer acquainted with the diggings than we, we thought it might be true
what he was saying, and that we might at least try till dinner time. The
weaver dropping down, commenced afresh to pick away the clay at one side,
but our friend said “No, the stone will drop on you if you go below it:
you must break it up, and bring it to the surface.” “Break it up, break
it up,” I heard him in the hole say, “man ye’re shurely thinkin’ its a
muckle cheese ye’re speakin’ aboot,” on which the man left us to engineer
as we had a mind.
Evening came, but we had not made the progress we expected, for as my
esteemed mate said, “the hannels o’ the picks were aye in our road, there
was sae little room to work in.” The holes were only about eight or ten
feet deep, bottoming on the usual pipe clay, imbedded in the surface of
which, and in the gravelly stuff immediately overlying it, the gold was
found. Sometimes it was got in gutter-like depressions, in which numerous
pockets occurred, full of grain gold and nuggets; sometimes it lay in
patches, and often lay like seed grain in a new-sown field. In the case
of gutters, only the holes that struck upon the line were profitable,
but the line was generally so uncertain and took such unexpected turns,
that those who in the morning might despond at being so far to a side,
might in the evening be harassed with fear of the encroachments of their
neighbours.
The common crowd confined its operations to the ground already opened,
but kept itself ever ready for a rush to new discoveries. Numerous small
parties, possessed of more than average enterprise, were ever on the move
amongst the outlying ranges, sinking shafts on speculation. Did they
light on gold, they passed the word quietly to their friends to occupy
the ground immediately adjoining them, that the common harpies, who went
spying about, too indolent to seek for themselves, might be outsided.
Not long could the matter remain hidden; a rumour would get upon the
wind, a few would be seen to leave their old claims hastily, with their
tools upon their shoulders, and steal off through the scrub; friendly
signals would be passed about, men would be seen tumbling up out of their
holes, and in little more time than it takes to tell it, the bulk of
the multitude were away upon the run to overtake those who were before,
leaving the place that before had swarmed with life, with only a mere
gleaning, which often seemed in doubt whither it was doing the best thing
for itself by remaining. In one such rush we joined, but arrived too late
for anything better than an uphill claim, which we bottomed at about one
third of the depth that gold might be expected at. A few yards below us,
two men had come up panting among the first of the runners, and on the
instant marked off twelve feet by twenty four for their united claim,
but thinking the ground too much on the slope, they shifted just twelve
feet lower down. Another party immediately took possession of the vacated
ground, and within four hours, the sinking being shallow, broke through
into a bed of nuggets, worth, as was afterwards affirmed, four thousand
pounds. The original claimants bottomed theirs on a few pennyweights
only. There was feverish excitement in all this, and the fortunate, when
wise, kept their own counsel, at least until their findings had been
placed safe under the charge of the Commissioner, for conveyance down to
town.
With various small fortune, my mate and I continued our labours, with
bankruptcy at length ominously near. We tried surface washing, but got
only sore backs by it, and returned to the sinking, there patiently to
await the approaching crisis in our circumstances. One day, a little
before sundown, we took our way homeward, rather downcast, and with some
misgivings about supper. Happily our friends had been more fortunate
than we, and the sight of half a sheep hanging from the tent pole, and
of a well-known face bending over a frying pan, quickened our dull weary
gait, while my companion, evidently touched with thankfulness for the
visible mercies, said half to himself, “I kent the puir ravens would be
fed,” adding for my encouragement,—“We’re no jist at the wab en’ yet, my
man.”
The night was cloudy and dark, but calm. We had drawn a large log to the
fire for want of chairs. We were in no lack of topics for conversation,
and there, spread out before us was a singular panorama of tents
illuminated from within, log fires among the trees in height and hollow,
and groups of big-bearded men, squatted around them. The Government being
at that time weak for want of policemen, all went armed, and for the
protection of the tents and what was in them during the absence of the
owners, dogs abounded. The firearms, partly with a view to intimidate the
ill-disposed, and partly because of damp, were fired off nightly, which
occasioned a protracted fusilade far and near before bed time, the dogs
not being idle the while, and the uproar being increased in interest, by
the uncertainty about the bullets. Putting fresh logs on the fire we go
to bed, six of us in a row, with no room to spare upon the floor when we
are down. In the middle of the night we are awakened by the rushing of
the wind among the trees, a few drops come pattering on the roof, and we
feel thankful it is cloth that covers us, but we soon hear a sound that
is different from the noise of the wind as it sways the branches; nearer
and louder it comes, and we hold our breath in fear; our fire outside
roars in the blast, and the lighter brands are whirled down the slope.
We see it all, for there is no door to our dwelling. With a fury, the
like of which we never before knew, the storm breaks on us, in a moment
all is confusion and dismay, and an unbroken deluge of rain drowns our
voices by its drumming on our roof, which reels as if it would forsake
us. The sewing gives way, and the water comes spouting through the
openings; we try to stop the leaks with our caps and stockings, but we
only make the breaches bigger; what matter this however, when a torrent
begins to dam up behind our uphill wall, ultimately breaks through, and
washes across the floor. Helpless and beaten now, we gather our blankets
hastily together, roll them into balls, and sit on them. We have no help
but to continue sitting till daybreak, for our fire has been washed out,
and cannot be renewed till morning; with its last simmering sob expires
our hope of coffee or even a light to our much desired pipes. The storm
in its great violence soon spent itself, but the morning showed a wreck
around of limbs of trees torn from their living trunks, while the face
of the hill was furrowed deep with torrent beds. A clump of bushes to
windward had alone saved our habitation from being blown away.
On reaching our hole early in the forenoon, we found it filled to the
brim with water. Some of our neighbours, in like predicament, had already
begun with pails to bale theirs out. Want of a pail, and the urgency of
our necessities, caused us to betake ourselves to some of the deserted
workings, in the hope of gleaning something there. The ground was
shallow, and so much honey-combed that our search was accompanied with
some little risk, when we had to use our picks upon the thin partitions.
But half a sheep among six men was not likely to last long, so, providing
ourselves with candles, we descended each into a separate hole, making
this agreement before disappearing from each other’s sight, that any
change made by either of us must be reported to the other in case of
accident. Late in the afternoon I heard my name called from above, and
crawled to the daylight at the bottom to answer and learn progress. In
reply to his inquiries about how I was, I cried up merrily, “Pretty
weel, I thank ye, in ma health, but I hae got nae goold.” “Ah weel,” he
says, “never mind that, my man, we’ll speak about goold the morn, come
yer wa’s up ti the tap, and bring yer tools wi’ ye, there’s been awfu’
wark gan on here I’m thinkin’.” A fight or something equally interesting
immediately occurred to my mind as the occasion of his seriousness, and
I lost no time in getting to the surface. I could see no crowd, and
turned to him for explanation. He had come upon some yellow specks in a
corner of the roof he was examining, and had used his pick in following
up the clue: the hollow sound made by his blows startled him a little,
and he moderated his first zeal. He began soon to be more and more
sensibly aware of a smell of a particularly disagreeable nature, and
which increased so much as he made the opening bigger that he was seized
with nausea, in which his mind became troubled with strange apprehension
unaccountable to him. He could hear no sound but what he made himself,
his tallow candle but feebly lighted up the face of the wall before him,
and left the pillared chamber with its crumbling drifts behind in solemn
darkness. Making an attempt to shake off his depression of spirits, he
made his pick fall vigorously into the hollow he had already made, and
wrenched away a clod that left a cavity beyond. Seizing the candle, he
held it to the breach, and to his dismay, there lay “glowerin’ oot at
him, the wasted face o’ a deed man.” We made known the circumstance to
a party of men whom we met on our way back to the tent; but they seemed
not sufficiently interested to go out of their way to see the place. We
made it known to some of our neighbours on the hill, and learnt that wood
for coffins being scarce, and church-yards scarcer, it had been found
convenient in the earlier days of the diggings simply to pass the bodies
down a deserted hole, and fill it up with top stuff.
About a week after, we found ourselves reduced to dependence on the
others of the company for the bread we ate; they were willing that it
should be so, while they continued able, but I prepared to go in search
of daily work, washed my spare shirt, baked a small loaf to take with
me, and bade them all good bye. My mate having some prospect of joining
another party, whose finances were in a better state than ours, remained
in hope, but accompanied me on my way for about a mile. Having no
particular occupation in view, all roads were alike to me. At starting,
however, we set our faces in a direction somewhere between south and
west, but when we stopped to part, we discovered we had gradually turned,
and were going somewhere between north and east, judging by the sun. This
specimen of our art in bush travelling caused my friend evident concern
about how I would get on when left to myself, and he wished me to return
and make a new effort to better our circumstances, but as my doing so
would have prevented his acceptance of the offer that had been made to
him, I declined, but felt my heart moved strangely when my hand loosened
from his parting grasp. All day I travelled, but towards evening, when
looking out for water by which to camp for the night, I came upon an old
square hole, that seemed familiar to me. My mind at first was inclined
to disown acquaintance with it, but the surrounding evidence was too
strong, and I sat down for some minutes, overpowered by thoughts on the
circumstance. I must have been travelling in a circle, for this hole lay
scarce half a mile from the tent I had left in the morning, in fact,
now that my attention was awakened, I could hear the barking of the
dogs belonging to my late neighbours. Was it providence that was thus
overruling my movements? I thought of Whittington. Or was it merely a
case of inattention to the course of the sun? My whole heart went in
favour of the Whittington interpretation, but there was one from whom I
feared the remark, that “A bad shilling was ill to get quit of,” were I
to appear among my late companions again; so I rose and walked about two
miles further off, and camped in a bushy hollow. I made my bed close in
among the matted undergrowth of a clump of thick growing bushes, but was
awakened in the middle of the night by certain rustlings underneath and
round about me, that made me a wiser man before daylight came. In all my
subsequent wanderings I chose open level ground, with a shelter of my
own making. Distrust of the creeping things I had heard, and thought I
felt, caused me to sit up the last few hours of darkness, but one end of
a decayed log I sat on being near the fire, its tinder-like substance
became heated and began to smoulder. With my head resting on my hand,
I was in a musing way watching the thin wreaths of smoke spueing from
the cracks, a few of which extended to near my seat, when I was rather
startled by the sight of a large beetle running wildly about among the
crevices, but I rose quickly to my feet when a centipede about as long
and as broad as my fore-finger, came crawling from the under side within
a few inches of my hand. There seemed nothing left me now but to stand,
until it suddenly occurred to me that mistaking my motionless legs for
stumps, the creatures might be crawling up for concealment under my loose
bark-like trousers, but I had not well begun to walk about to deprive
them of the chance, when a new fear took hold of me, that of possibly
treading on their tails. This was the first sincere misery I had met
with in the country; it was the first, but not the last by many of my
lonely nights in the bush. I had made an ill choice of my resting place,
a small green spot surrounded close at hand by piles of mouldering wood,
in which small animal life was swarming, and set astir by the heat of the
huge fire I had made before lying down. Next night I camped by the side
of a small marsh in an open forest scene, being very tired and retaining
unimpaired the serious impressions of last night’s lesson. I looked upon
a certain dampness of the ground as an assurance that I would not be
similarly disturbed, but in the morning as I sat at breakfast, from time
to time taking a perplexed look at my swollen hands, and passing them
over my evidently ill-treated face, I began to fear that I had no longer
personal appearance to rely upon in finding an employer. The musquitos
had hived about me from the going down of the sun till the chilly hour
before daybreak: in vain I had wrapped my head in a blanket, the knobs
disfiguring my nose and brow told that the pests had found their way to
me. Wearied and sore with the two days’ travelling, I had hoped to get a
little sleep when I found their numbers thinning as the morning advanced,
but a damp white fog hung low above the ground, and the cold from the wet
turf beneath had reached me through the few twigs I had made my bed on. I
became cramped in all my limbs, and was glad to rise with the first flush
of the rapid dawn.