Creation might have been but yesterday. Even these white canvas tents, lying in the lap of Night, in the centre of the forest of peaks, do not dispel the illusion. They are clustered in the saddle of a gully almost hidden from sight by jealous upland. But look within, and you will see that the old world is marching on to the new. Sturdy men, asleep upon canvas beds, are resting from their toil. Some are from old Devon, England's garden land; some from the Cornwall mines; some from the motherland's fevered cities. Rest, tired workers! Sleep for a little while, strong, brown-bearded men! Over your spirits, as you dream and sometimes smile, it may be that the eternal light of a new childhood is slowly breaking!
Hark! What cry is this that reaches the ear? Come nearer. A baby's voice! And now we can hear the soft voice of the mother, singing her child to sleep with an old familiar nursery rhyme. Dear words! Dear memories! Sweet thread of life! When it snaps, the world is dark, and its tenderness and beauty have departed from our souls. The mother's soft voice is like a rill dancing down a hill in the sun's eye. How sweet it sounds!
What brings these men, women, and children here among the wilds? For answer, take--briefly told--what is not a legend, but veritable new-world history.
Two men, adventurers from the old world, attracted thence by the news of gold discoveries, travelled into new country in search of an eldorado which they could keep to themselves until their fortunes were made. They travelled over mountain and plain, and searched here and searched there, for weeks and months without success, until, almost starving and penniless, they found themselves on the banks of a swiftly-flowing river. This river, here wide, here narrow, here confined between rocky precipices, here widening on the plains, presented strange contrasts during the year. In the winter, the mountain snows which fed it came tumbling furiously over the rocks; then its waters rushed madly through the defiles and overflowed the plains. In the summer, peace came to it; the warm sun made it drowsy, and it fell asleep. It curled itself up in its bed, as it were, and left its banks bare and dry. The snow-torrents from the mountains brought with them something rarer than snow--gold. The precious metal grew in the mountain rocks, and when the furious water tore it from its home, and carried it to the river, it sank into the river's bed and banks, and enriched every fissure and crevice in its stony bottom. When the two adventurers camped by the river's side it was summer, and the banks were dry. They tried for gold, and found it. In a few hours they unearthed twenty ounces, and they looked at each other with wild eyes. Not a soul was within many miles of them; only the birds and the insects knew their secret. But they could not work without food. Some twenty miles from the scene of their discovery was a sheep-farming station. Thither they walked in the night, so that they might not be observed, and slept during the day. Pleading poverty, they bought at the station a little meat and flour, and walked in the daylight away from the river. But when night fell, they warily retraced their steps, and crept through the dark like thieves, until they came to the precious banks. For weeks and months they worked in secret, and lived like misers, never daring to light a fire, for fear the smoke might be seen; the very wind was their enemy. Their flesh wasted, their faces became haggard, their hair grew tangled and matted, they became hollow-eyed; and when, after many months of suffering, they had amassed as much pure gold as they could carry, they walked painfully and wearily through bush and plain for a hundred and sixty miles, until they came to a city with a few thousand inhabitants, where, skeletons among men, they told their story, and for the first time showed their treasure. Delirium seized the city; men became almost frantic with excitement; and the next day half the inhabitants were making preparations to journey to Tom Tiddler's ground. Surely enough the river's banks proved a veritable gold-mine; and after a time fresh discoveries were made. Came there one day a man, almost dead, from the snow mountains, with lumps of gold in his pockets; but the perils of those regions were great, and men thought twice before they ventured. Life, after all, is more precious than gold. Some adventurers went forth: and never returned to tell their story. Then it was said they were killed by starvation, not by the perils of the weather; or because they had no guns, and tents, and blankets with them. Said some, 'Let us take food sufficient for months, and whatever else is necessary.' They took more; they took wives, those who had them. Believe me, woman was worth more than her weight in gold. So in the summer they went into Campbell's Ranges, and pitched their tents there. And those they left behind them, wrapt in their eager hunt for gold, forgot them for a time. The town nearest to the Ranges was many miles away; it was composed of a couple of score of tents and huts, and perhaps two hundred persons lived there. Wandered into it, looking about him strangely, wistfully--for old-world's ways were upon him, and old-world thoughts were stirring in his mind--a man, tall, blue-eyed, strong; No man is long a stranger in the new world, and this wayfarer talked to one and another, and heard from a butcher the story of the two adventurers working on the river's banks until they were worn to skin and bone.
'But they got gold!' exclaimed the new-comer.
'Almost more than they could carry,' was the answer.
The man looked about him restlessly; the eager longing of his soul was for gold, but in him it was no base craving.
'If one could get into the mountains now,' he said, 'where the gold comes from!'
Said the butcher: 'Some went, and didn't come back.'
'They lie over there?' said the man, looking towards the hills.