when a well-known miner and business man in that pretty town took me
round the old alluvial diggings and pointed out the most celebrated
claims. These (in 1879) were, of course, deserted or left to an
occasional Chinese "fossicker," who rewashed the rejected pay dirt,
which occasionally has enough gold in it to satisfy the easily-pleased
Mongolian. I went with my friend that same day into the Black Horse
Mine, and saw quartz crushing for the first time; but, naturally enough,
I took far more interest in the alluvial workings that can be managed by
few friends than in operations which required capital and the
importation of stamping machinery from England; and Ballarat, rich as it
once was for the single miner, is now left to corporations.
One of the strangest features of an old gold-mining district is its
wasted and upturned appearance. The whole of the surrounding country is,
as it were, eviscerated. It is all hills and hollows, which shine and
glare in the hot sun and look exceedingly desolate. When, in addition,
the town itself fails and fades for want of other means of support, and
the houses fall into rack and ruin as I have seen in Oregon, the place
resembles a disordered room seen in the morning after a gambling
debauch. The town is happy which is able to reform and live henceforth
on agriculture, as is now the case to a great extent with Ballarat and
with Sandhurst, which has discarded its famous name of Bendigo.
To a miner, or indeed to anyone in want of money, as I usually was when
knocking about in Australian or American mining districts, the one
painful thing is to know where untold quantities of gold lie without
being able to get a single pennyweight of it. I remember on more than
one occasion sitting on the banks of the Fraser River in British
Columbia, or of the Illinois River in Oregon, pondering on the absurdity
of my needing a hundred dollars when millions were in front of me under
those fast-flowing streams. Those who know nothing about gold countries
may ask how I knew there were millions there. The answer is simple
enough. First let me say a few words about one common process of mining.
When it is discovered that there is a certain quantity of gold in the
vast deposits of gravel which are found in many places along the Pacific
slope, but especially in Oregon and California, water, brought in a
"flume" or aqueduct from a higher level, is directed, by means of a pipe
and nozzle fixed on a movable stand, against the crumbling bench, which
perhaps contains only two or three shillings-worth of gold to the ton.
This is washed down into a sluice made of wooden boards, in which
"riffles," or pieces of wood, are placed to stop the metal as it flows
along in the turbid rush of water. Some amalgamated copper plates are
put in suitable places to catch the lighter gold, or else the water
which contains it is allowed to run into a more slowly-flowing aqueduct,
which gives the finer scales time to settle. This, roughly put, is the
hydraulic method of mining which causes so much trouble between the
agricultural and mining interests in California; for the finer detritus
of this washing, called technically "slickens," fills up the rivers,
causes them to overflow and deposit what is by no means a fertilising
material on the pastures of the Golden State.
Now, what man does here in a small way, and with infinite labour and
pains, Nature has been doing on a grand scale for unnumbered centuries.
Let us, for instance, take the Fraser River and its tributary the
Thompson, which is again made up of the North and South Forks, which
unite at Kamloops, as the main rivers do at Lytton. The whole of the
vast extent of mountainous country drained by these streams is known to
be more or less auriferous. Many places, such as Cariboo, are, or were,
richly so; and there are few spots in that part which will not yield
what miners know as a "colour" of gold--that is, gold just sufficient to
see, even if it is not enough to pay for working by our slight human
methods. I have been in parts of Oregon where one might get "colour" by
pulling up the bunches of grass that grew sparsely on a thin soil which
just covered the rocks. But the united volumes of the Fraser and the two
Thompsons and all their tributaries have been doing an enormous
gold-washing business for a geological period; and all that portion of
British Columbia which lies in their basin may be looked upon as similar
to the bench of gravel which is assaulted by the hydraulic miner. And
just as the miner makes the broken-down gold-bearing stuff run through
his constructed sluices, Nature sends all her gold in a torrent into the
natural sluice which is known as the Fraser Canyon.
This canyon, which is cut through the range of mountains known
erroneously as the Cascades, is about forty miles long, if we count from
Lytton and Yale. In its narrowest part, at Hell Gate, a child may throw
a stone across; and its current is tremendous. So rapidly does it run,
that no boat can venture upon it, and nothing but a salmon can stem its
stream. It is full, too, of whirlpools; and at times the under rush is
so strong that the surface appears stationary. What its depth may be it
is impossible to tell. But one thing is certain, and that is, that in
the cracks and crannies of its rocky bed must be gold in quantities
beyond the dreams of a diseased avarice. But is this not all theory? No,
it is not. At one part of the river, in the upper canyon, there is a
place where the current stayed, and, with a long backward swirl, built
up a bar. If you ask an old British Columbian about Boston Bar, he will,
perhaps, tell stories which may seem to put Sacramento in the shade.
Yet there will be much truth in them, for there was much gold found on
that bar. Again, some years ago, at Black Canyon, on the South Fork of
the Thompson, when that clear blue stream was at a low stage, there was
a great landslip, which for some eighty minutes dammed back the waters
into a lake. The whole country side gathered there with carts and
buckets, scraping up the mud and gold from the bottom. Many thousands of
dollars were taken out of the dry river bed before the dam gave way to
the rising waters. And, if there was gold there, what is there even now
in the great main sluice of the vastest natural gold mining concern ever
set going, which has never yet since it began indulged in a "cleanup?"
I have been asked sometimes, when speaking about the Fraser and other
rivers, which are undoubtedly gold traps, why it was that nobody
attempted to turn them. Of course, my questioners were neither engineers
nor geographers. Certainly an inspection of the map of British Columbia
would show the utter impossibility of such a scheme. To dam the Fraser
would be like turning the Amazon. Yet once I do not doubt that it was
dammed, and that all the upper country was a vast lake, until the
waters found the way through the Cascades which it has now cut into a
canyon. Otherwise I cannot account for the vast benches and terraces
which rise along the Thompson. Indeed, the whole of the Dry Belt down to
Lytton has the appearance, to an eye only slightly cognisant of
geological evidence, of an ancient lacustrine valley.
Yet much work of a similar kind to damming this river has been done in
California; and even now there is a company at the great task of turning
the Feather River (which is also undoubtedly gold bearing) through a
tunnel in order to work a large portion of its bed. Whether they will
succeed or not is perhaps doubtful; but if they do, the returns will
probably be large, as they would be if anyone were able to turn aside
the Illinois in Southern Oregon, or the Rogue River, which has been
mining in the Siskiyou Range for untold generations.
I feel certain that all human gold discovering has been a mere nothing;
that our methods are only faint and feeble imitations of Nature, and
that only by circumventing her shall we be able to reach the richer
reward. But by the very vastness of her operations we are precluded
from imitating the sluice robber, who does not work himself, but "cleans
up" the rich boxes of some mining company which has undertaken a scheme
too large for any one man.
OLD AND NEW DAYS IN BRITISH COLUMBIA
The whole of this vast country--this sea of mountains, as it has very
appropriately been called--used practically to belong to the Hudson's
Bay Trading Company, and they made more than enough money out of it and
its inhabitants. The Indians, though never quite to be trusted, were,
and are, not so warlike as their neighbours far to the south of the
forty-ninth parallel, such as the Sioux and Apaches, and naturally were
so innocent of the value of the furs and skins they brought into the
trading ports and forts as to be vilely cheated, in accordance with all
the best traditions of white men dealing with ignorant and commercially
unsophisticated savages. Guns and rifles being the objects most desired
by the Indian, he was made to pay for them, and to pay an almost
incredible price, as it seems to us now, for the company made sure of
three or four hundred per cent, at the very least, and occasionally
more; so that a ten shilling Birmingham musket brought in several pounds
when the pelts for which it was exchanged were sold in the London
market.
Their dominion of exclusion passed away with the discovery of gold in
Cariboo, and the consequent assumption of direct rule by the Government.
The palmy days of mining are looked back on with great regret by the old
miners, and many are the stories I have heard by the camp fire or the
hotel bar, which explained how it was that the narrator was still poor,
and how So-and-so became rich. There were few men who were successful in
keeping what they had made by luck or hard work, yet gold dust flew
round freely, and provisions were at famine prices. I knew one man who
said he had paid forty-two dollars (or nearly nine pounds) for six
pills. They were dear but necessary; and as the man who possessed them
had a corner in drugs, he was able to name his price. At that time, too,
some men made large sums of money by mere physical labour, and for
packing food on their backs to the mines they received a dollar for
every pound weight they brought in.
An acquaintance of mine, who is now an hotel-keeper at Kamloops, was a
living example of the strange freaks fortune played men in Cariboo. He
was offered a share in a mine for nothing, but refused it, and bought
into another. Gold was taken out of the first one to the tune of 50,000
dollars, and the other took all the money invested in it and never
returned a cent. He was in despair about one mine, and tried to sell out
in vain. He was thinking of giving up his share for nothing, when gold
was found in quantities. I think he makes more out of whisky, however,
than he ever did at Cariboo, though he still hankers after the old
exciting times and the prospects of the gold-miner's toast, "Here's a
dollar to the pan, the bed-rock pitching, and the gravel turning blue."
Nowadays there are still plenty of men who traverse the country in all
directions looking for new finds. They are called "prospectors," and go
about with a pony packed with a pick, a shovel, and a few necessaries,
hunting chiefly for quartz veins, and they talk of nothing but "quartz,"
"bed-rock," "leads," gold and silver, and so many ounces to the ton. It
is now many years ago since I was working on a small cattle ranch in the
Kamloops district, when one of these men, a tall, grey-haired old fellow
named Patterson, came by. My employer knew him, and asked him to stay.
He bored us to death the whole evening, and showed innumerable
specimens, which truly were not very promising, as it seemed to us. His
great contempt for farming was very characteristic of the species.
"What's a few head of rowdy steers?" asked Mr Patterson; "why, any day I
might strike ten thousand dollars." "Yes," I answered mischievously;
"and any day you mightn't." He turned and glared at me, demanding what I
knew about mining. "Not a great deal," said I; "but I have seen mining
here and in Australia, and for one that makes anything a hundred die
dead broke." "Well," he replied, scornfully "I'd rather die that way
than go ploughing, and I tell you I know where there is money to be
made. Just wait till I can get hold of a capitalist."
That is another of the poor prospector's stock cries; but as a general
rule capitalists are wary, and don't invest in such "wild cat"
speculations.
Next morning Mr Patterson proposed that I should go along with him and
he would make my fortune. "What at?" said I. "Quartz mining?" "Not this
time," was his answer; "it's placer" (alluvial). I was not in the least
particular then what I did if I could only get good wages, so I wanted
to know what he proposed giving me. "Bed-rock wages," said he. Now that
means good money if a strike is made, and nothing if it is not. So I
shook my head, and he turned away, leaving me to wallow in the mire of
contemptible security. I can hardly doubt that he will be one day found
dead in the mountains, and that his Eldorado will be but oblivion.
Just as I was about to leave British Columbia for Washington Territory
there were very good reports of the new Similkameen diggings, and for
the first and only time in my life I was very nearly taking the gold
fever. But though I saw much of the gold that had been taken out of the
creek, I managed to restrain myself, and was glad of it afterwards, when
I learned from a friend of mine in town that very few had made anything
out of it, and that most had returned to New Westminster penniless and
in rags.
Railroads and modern progress are nowadays civilising the country to a
great extent, though I am by no means sure that civilisation is a good
thing in itself. However, manners are much better than they used to be
in the old times, and it might be hard now to find an instance of
ignorance parallel to one which my friend Mr H. told me. It appears that
a dinner was to be given in the earlier days to some great official from
England, and an English lady, who knew how such things should be done,
was appointed manager. She determined that everything should be in good
style, and ordered even such extravagant and unknown luxuries as napkins
and finger-glasses. Among those who sat at the well-appointed table were
miners, cattle-men, and so on, and one of them on sitting down took up
his finger-bowl, and saying, "By golly, I'm thirsty," emptied it at a
draught. Then, to add horror on horror, he trumpeted loudly in his
napkin and put it in his breast pocket.
The progress of civilisation, however, destroys the Indians and their
virtues. One Indian woman, who was married to a friend of mine--and a
remarkably intelligent woman she was--one day remarked to me that before
white men came into the country the women of her tribe (she was a
Ptsean) were good and modest but that now that was all gone. It is true
enough. This same woman was remarkable among the general run of her
class, and spoke very good English, being capable of making a joke too.
A half-bred Indian, working for her husband, one day spoke
contemptuously of his mother's tribe, and Mrs ----, being a full-blooded
Indian, did not like it. She asked him if he was an American, and, after
overwhelming him with sarcasm, turned him out of doors.
As a matter of fact, most of the Indians are demoralised, especially
those who live in or near the towns, and they live in a state of
degradation and perpetual debauchery. Though it is a legal offence to
supply them with liquor, they nevertheless manage to get drunk at all
times and seasons. When they work they are not to be relied on to
continue at it steadily, and when drunk they are only too often
dangerous. Their type of face is often very low, and I never saw but one
handsome man among the half-breeds, though the women, especially the
Hydahs, are passable in looks. This man was a pilot, and a good one, on
the lakes; but he was perpetually being discharged for drunkenness.
The lake and river steamboats are not always safe to be in, and some of
the pilotage and engineering is reckless in the extreme. The captains
are too often given to drink overmuch, and when an intoxicated man is at
the wheel in a river full of the natural dangers of bars and snags, and
those incident on a tremendous current, the situation often becomes
exciting. I was once on the Fraser River in a steamer whose boiler was
certified to bear 80 lb. of steam and no more. We were coming to a
"riffle," or rapid, where the stream ran very fiercely, with great
swirls and waves in it, and the captain sang out to the engineer, "How
much steam have you, Jack?" "Eighty," answered Jack.
"Fire up, fire up!" said the captain, as he jammed the tiller over; "we
shall never make the riffle on that."
The firemen went to work, and threw in more wood, and presently we
approached the rapid. The captain leant out of the pilot house.
"Give it her, Jack," he yelled excitedly.
The answer given by Jack scared me, for I knew quite well what she ought
to bear.
"There's a hundred and twenty on her now!"
"Well, maybe it will do;" and the captain's head retreated.
On we went, slowly crawling and fighting against the swift stream which
tore by us. We got about half-way up, and we gradually stayed in one
position, and even went back a trifle. The captain yelled and shouted
for more steam yet, and then I retreated as far as I could, and sat on
the taffrail, to be as far as possible from the boiler, which I believed
would explode every moment. But Jack obeyed orders, and rammed and raked
at the fires until the gauge showed 160 lb., and we got over at last.
But I confess I did feel nervous.
This happened about ten miles below Yale, and at that very spot the
tiller-ropes of the same boat once parted, and they had to let her
drift. Fortunately, she hung for a few moments in an eddy behind a big
rock until they spliced them again; but it was a close call with
everyone on board. A steamer once blew up there, and most of the crew
and passengers were killed outright or drowned.
Above Yale the river is not navigable until Savona's Ferry is reached.
That is on the Kamloops Lake, and thence east up the Thompson and the
lakes there is navigation to Spallamacheen. Once the owners of the
_Peerless_ ran her from Savona down to Cook's Ferry, just in order to
see if it could be done. The down-stream trip was done in three hours,
but it took three weeks to get her back again, and then her progress had
to be aided with ropes from the shore; so it was not deemed advisable to
make the trip regularly.
As for the river in the main Fraser canyon, it is nothing more nor less
than a perfect hell of waters; and though Mr Onderdonk, who had the
lower British Columbia contract for the Canadian Pacific Railroad, built
a boat to run on it, the first time the _Skuzzy_ let go of the bank she
ran ashore. She was taken to pieces and rebuilt on the lakes. The
railroad people wanted her at first on the lower river, and asked a Mr
Moore, who is well known as a daring steamboatman, to take her down. He
said he would undertake it, but demanded so high a fee, including a
thousand dollars for his wife if he was drowned, that his offer was
refused. Yet it was well worth almost any money, for it would have been
a very hazardous undertaking--as bad as, or even worse than, the _Maid
of the Mist_ going through the rapids below Niagara.
A TALK WITH KRUGER
It was a warm day in the end of September 1898 when I put my foot in
Pretoria. There was an air of lassitude about the town. President Steyn,
of the Orange Free State, had been and gone, and the triumphal arch
still cried "Wilkom" across Church Square. The two Boer States had
ratified their secret understanding, and many Boers looked on the arch
as a prophecy of victory. Perhaps by now those who were accustomed to
meet in the Raadsaal close by are not so sure that heaven-enlightened
wisdom brought about the compact. As for myself, I thought little enough
of the matter then, for Pretoria seemed curiously familiar to me, though
I had never been there, and had never so much as seen a photograph of it
until I saw one in Johannesburg. For some time I could not understand
why it seemed familiar. It is true that it had some resemblance to a
tenth-rate American town in which the Australian gum-trees had been
acclimatised, as they have been in some malarious spots in California.
And in places I seemed to recall Americanised Honolulu. Yet it was not
this which made me feel I knew Pretoria. It was something in the aspect
of the people, something in the air of the men, combined doubtless with
topographical reminiscence. And when I came to my hotel and had settled
down, I began to see why I knew it. The whole atmosphere of the city
reeked of the very beginnings of finance. It was the haunt of the
concession-monger; of the lobbyist; of the men who wanted something.
These I had seen before in some American State capitals; the anxious
face of the concession-hunter had a family likeness to the man of
Lombard Street: the obsession of the gold-seeker was visible on every
other face I looked at.
In the hotels they sat in rows: some were silent, some talked anxiously,
some were in spirits and spoke with cheerfulness. It pleased my solitary
fancy to label them. These had got their concessions, they were going
away; these still hoped strongly, and were going to-morrow and
to-morrow; these still held on, and were going later; these again had
ceased to hope, but still stayed as a sickened miner will hang round a
played-out claim. They were all gamblers, and his Honour the President
was the Professional Gambler who kept the House, who dealt the cards,
and too often (as they thought) "raked in the pot," or took his heavy
commission. And I had nothing to ask for; all I wanted was to see the
tables if I could, and have a talk with him who kept them.
The President is an accessible man. He does not hide behind his dignity:
he affects a patriarchal simplicity, and is ever ready to receive his
own people or the stranger within his gates. His unaffected affectation
is to be a simpleton of character: he tells all alike that he is a
simple old man, and expects everyone to chuckle at the transparent
absurdity of the notion. Was it possible, then, for me to see him and
have a talk with him? I was told to apply to a well-known Pretorian
journalist. As I was also a journalist of sorts, and not wholly unknown,
it was highly probable he would assist me in my desire not to leave
Pretoria without seeing the Father of his people. But my informant
added: "The President will say nothing--he can say nothing in very few
words. If you want him to talk, say 'Rhodes.'" I thanked my new hotel
acquaintance and and said I would say "Rhodes" if it seemed necessary.
And next afternoon I walked down Church Street with the journalist W----
and came to the President's house. We had an appointment, and after
waiting half-an-hour in the _stoep_ with four or five typical and silent
Boers, Mr Kruger came out in company with a notorious Pretorian
financier, for whom I suppose the poor President, who is hardly worth
more than a million or so, had taken one of his simple-hearted fancies.
And then I was introduced to his Honour, and we sat down opposite to
each other. By the President's side, and on his right hand, sat W----,
who was to interpret my barbarous English into the elegant _taal_.