LIFE ON THE GOLD DIGGINGS.
And now I will endeavour to picture my impression of the gold diggings
as they appeared on that same evening.
After passing through one of the most beautiful of the Lindis gorges we
found ourselves at the entrance of a wide tract of open and undulating
country, almost bare of anything beyond short yellow grass, encompassed
on all sides by hills which stretched away westward to the snow-crowned
mountains. The extent of the open was from one to two miles square, and
through its centre--or nearly so--the Lindis flowed in a rocky bed.
Along the river and far up the downs on either side were sprinkled
hundreds of little tents with their hundreds of fires and rising eddies
of smoke. The banks of the river were crowded with men at work, some in
the water, some out, others pitching tents or tending horses, some
constructing rough furniture, cradles and long Toms for washing gold,
hundreds of horses tethered among the tents or upon the open, and above
all the suppressed hum of a busy multitude.
On all new gold diggings it was usual to establish a self-constituted
form of government among the diggers themselves, which in the absence of
any regular police force or law of the land was responsible for the
protection and good conduct of the entire community. Some capable man
was elected as president and chief, before whom all cases of
misdemeanour were heard, and whose decisions and powers to inflict
punishment were final. Under such rule, crude as it was, the utmost good
conduct usually prevailed, and any glaring instances of robbery or crime
were not only rare, but severely dealt with.
To this man we reported our arrival, and a camping ground was pointed
out to us. It was too late to do anything towards preparing a permanent
camp that night, but at daybreak the following morning we were hard at
work, and by evening had made ourselves a comfortable hut.
We marked out a rectangle of 12 ft. by 10 ft., the size of our largest
tent, around which we raised a sod wall two feet high, which we
plastered inside with mud. Over the walls we rigged up our tent,
securing it by stays and poles set in triangles at each extremity. At
one end we built a capacious fireplace and chimney eight feet wide,
leaving two feet for a doorway. The chimney was built of green sods,
also plastered within, and our door was a piece of old sacking weighted
and let fall over the opening. Around the hut we cut a good drain to
convey away rain water. At the upper end of the hut we raised a rough
framework of green timber cut from the neighbouring scrub, one foot high
and six wide, thus taking up exactly half of our house. Upon this we
spread a plentiful supply of dry grass to form our common bed. Our
working tools and other gear found place underneath, and with a few
roughly made stools and the empty "Old Tom" case for a table, our
mansion was complete.
It was not yet night when our work was done, and some of us strolled
about to obtain any information available. This was not as satisfactory
as we could have desired. Very many had been disappointed, gold was not
found in sufficient quantities to pay, and prospectors were out in every
direction. It was early yet, however, to condemn the diggings, and the
grumblers and the disappointed are always present in every undertaking,
so we comforted ourselves, and sought dinner and the night's sleep we
were so much in need of.
The usual requisites for a digger are, a spade, pick, shovel, long Tom
or cradle, and a wide lipped flat iron dish (not unlike an ordinary
wash-hand basin) for final washing.
The long Tom consists of a wooden trough or race, twelve to fifteen feet
long and two feet wide; its lower end is fitted into an iron screen or
grating, fixed immediately above a box or tray of the same size. To work
the machine it is set so that a stream of water obtained by damming up a
little of the river is allowed to pass quickly and constantly down the
race, and through the grating into the box at the other end.
The "stuff" in which the gold is supposed to be is thrown into the race,
where, by the action of the current of water, the earth, stones, rubbish
and light matter are washed away and the heavy sand, etc., falls through
the grating into the box. As frequently as necessary this box is removed
and another substituted, when the contents are washed carefully by means
of the basin. By degrees all the sand and foreign matter is washed away,
leaving only the gold.
The cradle is very similar to what it is named after, a child's swing
cot. It is simply a suspended wooden box, fitted with an iron grating
and tray beneath into which the "stuff" is cradled or washed by rocking
it by hand.
It takes considerable experience of the art of finding gold to enable a
man to fix on a good site for commencing operations. There are of course
instances of wonderful luck and unexpected success, but they are very
much the exception, and form but a diminutive proportion of the fortune
of any gold diggings. We hear of the man who has found a big nugget and
made a fortune, but nothing of the thousands who don't find any big
nuggets, and earn but bare wages or often less.
On most diggings a large proportion of the men are working for wages
only, and it not infrequently depends on the fortune of the employer
whether the labourer receives his wages or not. It may be a case of
general smash. We saw much of this on the Lindis diggings. They were not
a general success at that time, as we soon discovered to our cost; and
many who went there wildly hoping to find gold for the picking up, and
with no means to withstand a reverse, were only too glad to work for
those who had means to carry on for a while, for their food only.
We procured a long Tom, and spent some days prospecting with variable
success--_i.e._, we found gold nearly everywhere, each shovelful of
earth contained gold, but in quantities so generally infinitesimal as to
be not worth the time spent in working for it. The land was impregnated
with gold, but the difficulty was to find it in sufficient quantity to
pay.
We at length fixed upon a claim and set up our gear. From daylight to
dark we worked day after day, excavating, cradling, and washing, each
one taking it in turns to look after the horses and tent and fetch food
from the camp, which was at some distance away. The final washing of the
stuff was done twice daily, at noon and again at evening, and what an
exciting and anxious operation this was! How earnestly the decreasing
sediment was peered at to discover signs of the precious metal! How our
hearts would jump with delight when a bright yellow grain was
discovered, appearing for a moment on the dark surface, then more
careful washing, with beating hearts and necks craning over the fateful
dish as the mass got less and less, and then the sinking and
disappointment to find that the day's hard work of four men did not
bring us five shillings worth of gold! But hope, with the young and
sanguine, is hard to beat, and the following morning would see us at
work as cheerily as ever.
[Illustration: THE GOLD DIGGINGS.]
A fortnight after our arrival our provisions ran short, and we were
obliged to have recourse to the stores, of which two had been started by
an enterprising firm in Dunedin, and soon after we were nearly having a
famine, owing to the stores themselves running short by reason of the
drays conveying supplies having been snowed up in crossing the pass.
McLean was applied to, but he refused, and it was fortunate for him that
a caravan arrived before the diggers were actually in want.
With this caravan arrived a pedlar and a liquor merchant, two such
characters as cannot well be found except on a gold diggings. They
carried with them a plentiful supply of slop clothes, boots, tools, and
spirits, etc., and as luck--or ill luck--would have it, they pitched
their camp alongside ours.
One of these men rarely did business without the other. If a digger came
to purchase a pair of trousers or boots the bargain was never completed
to the satisfaction of both parties without a glass of spirits at the
adjacent grog shop to clinch it; and at night, when the diggers would
drop round the latter for a glass, many pairs of breeches, boots, or
other articles were disposed of under the happy influence of wine and
company.
[Illustration: PEDDLARS AT THE DIGGINGS.]
These men are to be met with in all parts of the Colonies where crowds
are collected, and they are usually of Jewish origin. There was nothing
objectionable about them; they were simply shrewd, energetic men of
business, ready without actual dishonesty to take every possible
advantage of the wants and weaknesses of their fellow men. We had some
pleasant evenings in their company, and many a jovial song and dance
they treated us to, for which, no doubt, they succeeded in extracting
good value for their wind and muscle.
Meat was scarce on the diggings, and at times for days together we had
none. McLean indeed did not refuse to sell fat cattle, but he demanded
prohibitive prices, and so it was customary to procure meat from a
distance.
We had been now two months on the Lindis, our funds instead of
increasing were diminishing, and we saw little or no hope of a change
for the better. An exodus had already commenced, and the incomers were
daily decreasing in number.
After holding a council meeting in our hut, it was decided that our camp
be broken up, and that we should all return together as far as Davis's
station, from whence two should proceed to Dunedin with the dray, while
the other two should purchase some fat beasts and drive them to the
diggings for sale.
The tents and tools were disposed of to a newly arrived group of
Australian diggers at a fair enough price, and we disposed of all the
remaining gear we did not actually need on the return journey, taking
with us little beyond the empty dray, and all being ready we bade
farewell to the Lindis diggings, and once more started on our uncertain
and adventurous travels.
I omitted to mention that during our residence on the Lindis we were
sadly troubled with rats. There must have been millions in the locality,
and it was very difficult to guard our food from their depredations.
During the day they mostly disappeared until sundown, when they came in
swarms to the tents. Sitting by the fire in the evening I have
frequently killed a dozen with a short stick as they approached
fearlessly in search of food, and during the night we got accustomed to
sharing our common bed with a goodly number of the rascals.