Arriving on the golden ground the first impulse is to secure a good spot for future operations. Upon enquiry you resolve upon some lucky gully. The other day, you are told, a fellow nuggetted ten or twenty pounds weight, and, of course, you see no reason why half a hundred weight might not be lying snugly ensconced awaiting the revelations of your pick. You walk to the place, strike in your claim as near the centre of the gully as possible, mark your boundaries, determine upon the size and character of your hole, and at once to vigorous exercise of muscle. Your mate spells you with the use of his spade or shovel. The top soil is off, the sands and clays are entered, and all goes on pretty smoothly until the pick comes into contact with something that soon drives it back again, with the loss perhaps of its steel point. At it again with good heart. A harder thrust is made. Again the tool rebounds. Never despair. Blows thick and fast descend until an entrance is gained, and some insignificant pieces are knocked off. You pause to gather breath and strength. “Why I have got into some iron here,” you exclaim. Some neighbouring bearded digger turns round and condescendingly remarks, that it is only the “burnt stuff,” and that you must “drive away.”
But the points of the new pick are sadly robbed of their glory. The blacksmith is sought at his primitive looking forge. After paying only half-a-crown for each point being steeled, you return to your claim and dash into it once more. But the day is closing, and the aching back and arms assure you that it is high time to think of home and supper.
Day after day the toil is continued. A little relief comes after the burnt stuff, in the shape of some more agreeable, separateable conglomerate, or some yellow or blue clay. Soon the necessity is seen for steps being cut in the side of the hole, and the back is rather tried with the throwing up of the stuff. Afterwards a few sticks are laid across one side of the top, as a footing place for the drawer up of the bucket, which has now to be employed. Several awkward lumps of quartz give a little trouble and test the patience of the miner. As you go on, your hopes are more strongly exercised. Eagerly do you notice the progress of your neighbours. Anxiously do you enquire about their luck when they have got down. In proportion to their success, so is the elevation of your spirits. Should any one strike upon a rich vein, you are very inquisitive about the particular direction of that vein, and the possibility of its running through your domain.
But the bottom is not gained and you begin to fancy that you never will reach there. “Never mind,” says some encouraging friend, “the deeper you go the more chance of luck.” Then you feel as though you would like to delve to the antipodes. On you go, looking cautiously round occasionally, in hope of catching a peep of some stray nugget or other. At last a little yellow spot attracts attention. It seems of a brighter colour than clay—a nearer look satisfies you that it must be gold. With what delight then does the embryo digger seize upon his first treasure. More excitement and pleasure are experienced at that time then in subsequent seasons of pocket scraping. His first impulse is to cry out “Eureka” with as great a zest as did Archimedes when he was dealing with gold. Other glittering spangles are in the maggotty stuff. Some greasy substance with streaks of yellow sand, is at once concluded by you to be the pipe clay bottom. But this is not the case, you have further to go. Yet console yourself with the idea that most of that through which you are now digging may prove “washing stuff.” But you approach the termination of your downward course. Some light and friable sandstone is seen studded with interesting looking shining spangles. Seizing a piece with avidity, you soon drop it with a dejected air as you recognize only mica. Ah! but there is something different surely. You are half disposed to doubt. No, it is no mica, but beautiful little specks and nuggets of gold, stuck all about the piece like currants in the Christmas pudding. There is no mistake about it, as you break bit after bit and let the little darlings tumble clumsily into a pannican. True, some of them are rather dirty; but you cannot help regarding them with peculiar affection. Well, the pipe clay floor is cleared, scraped and swept. The precious dust is carefully stored above with that layer immediately over, and preserved as washing stuff. The revelation of its wealth is to be made another day, though many and serious are the speculations as to its latent worth. One will hope there are two ounces to the load, another confidently asserts that there must be four.
But as yet, perhaps, there has been no important manifestations of pockets, with their glittering contents. Several dips of the rocky base gave you hopes of leading on to fortune, but the fossicking knife cleared out the pipe clay, and harshly scraped against the slate in vain. On repeated occasions some purple sandy veins with bright red spots in the pipe clay, like syrens of old, induce you to follow them in their course, promising all the while a rich feast at the end of the journey. Most trustfully you suffer yourself to be led along, until all at once your conductor gives you the slip, and leaves you staring at a wilderness of dirty white pipe clay. Half tempted to despair, you languidly turn to another place and carelessly plunge in the knife. There is a subterranean beauty, a perfect nymph of the hidden world, softly reclining, though not upon a violet bank. You hasten to obtain the lovely stranger, and to reveal those long neglected charms to the wondering gaze of devout admirers. Suspecting the fact of other fair creatures being similarly confined in these enchanted regions, you rush forward to the rescue with all the ardour of a knight of chivalry. With the sword of sharpness you penetrate long passages of gloom, until at length you reach a dark chamber. An entrance is forced, the light pours in, and a sight presents itself, which well nigh upsets your reason. Talk of the secret chamber, where suspended ranged the sweet wives of hideous Blue Beard! Tell of the dungeon of darkness, round whose damp walls were chained ten of the fairest dames of Christendom, mates of war-like knights, whom the giant thief of old had caged! These were nothing to the view that now unfolds itself. There are not ten, but tens of tens of the dear creatures most adored by men, and for whose release from the degradation and pangs of imprisonment down below, such zealous and such benevolent exertions are being made in the colonies of Victoria and New South Wales. May those worthy and disinterested labors be crowned with abundant success! Lord Rosse may say what he pleases about the intense gratification which he experienced, when he first resolved the filmy nebulæ of Orion into the galaxy of sparkling orbs, but I mean to declare that that is perfect moonshine to the delight of the gold seeker, when he first drops upon a good pocket of nuggets.
The tunnelling work now follows. The head stuff is removed to make way for you to get under, to work at the latent treasure of specs, nuggets and washing stuff. The constraint of body in work, the damp, the closeness of the atmosphere, the gloom, the fear of impending rocks, with occasional raps of knuckles and skull against the sides and roof, altogether make this wombatting not the most amusing operation in life; though, like other uncomfortable things, it now and then leads to some important and profitable result. It is often annoying to find your hopes of veins in a bank so thoroughly blasted. A week’s labor brings you to your boundary in a certain direction without a single glimpse of gold. Then perhaps, you may be placed in a peculiarly puzzling condition. You trace a pleasing vein to the verge of your claim; honesty says, “stop,” and self interest cries “go on.” To some lofty minds this position makes no manner of difficulty; they see the gold, and they simply follow it, reserving to a more convenient season the consideration of the precise whereabouts of their neighbour’s ground. Cases have been known of a poor fellow delving for weeks in a hole, and when quite sure of dropping on the gold, he all at once disappears in a cavern, which his friend of the next claim has constructed with much ingenuity to lighten his labors and load.
But the business of washing has to be thought of. That heap of dirt has to be passed through the cradle. If in the dry season, this must be done at a distance of from three to nine miles from the hole, paying, perhaps, one shilling a bucket for cartage. There is the loss of time going so far, and the inconvenience of having the company split into digging and washing parties, each having a separate establishment. Unless, therefore, you immediately require cash, you prefer carting the stuff home to your tent beside the dried up creek, waiting for the time of rains. When that joyous harvest of diggers does come, all is bustle and merriment. If a sensible man, and not putting off till to-morrow, you have secured your washing station beforehand. You now cut a place in the bank for your tubs and cradle, drive in two posts by the edge of the water, and roll down against them a log of six or eight feet long, against which dirt is put, to serve as a firm footing and embankment. The cradle is made to swing easily and unshiftingly, by the rockers resting in the grooves of two blocks of wood firmly fixed in the soil. By giving the cradle a slight slant to the lower end, the water will run off the quicker; but if it dips too much a little gold may wash off with the sand. All being ready, you take your iron bucket and carry the stuff to the tubs. The Aquarius with his long handed dipper, supplies the liquid for puddling. The stuff is kept well stirred about with a spade, so as to set the metal free from the adhesive soil and pipe clay. The dirtied water is gently poured off every now and then, and, with a fresh supply from the stream, you puddle away. Be not afraid of too much working, remembering that good puddling makes easy and profitable cradling. When this is done, you fill the hopper of your cradle with the stuff, keep on pouring water with the dipper, and rock carefully and evenly, using with the right hand a short stick to break any clods that may be in your hopper, but which your tub ought not to have sent there. The tubs being emptied, one of the party can be filling and preparing another, while you take out the residuum at the bottom of your cradle. The gold ought to rest on the wooden shelf under the hopper, but much will run down with the sand into one of the compartments at the bottom. But this has to be washed by the hand in the tin dishes. Now this process I cannot describe. It is one of the deepest mysteries of the gentle craft of gold digging. The uninitiated cannot possibly divine how the dish washer is able to separate the soil from the precious treasure. This art requires a watchful eye and skilful hand. Many men from careless washing lose much gold. Two men were in a great hurry to get through their heap, a party afterwards went over the washed material and extracted ten pounds weight of metal.
The day’s work over, you put your gold into the digger’s treasure chamber,—a matchbox; and you retire to your home to get dry clothes and your supper. But the gold has to be dried. A spade is put on the fire, the contents of the box poured on it, and the moisture soon disappears. The dust is then carefully blown away, the magnet is passed over to take up the iron particles, the little gathering is weighed and the result is known. Some interesting guesses are made as to the value of your heap. If thirty buckets made a load, if six buckets fill a tub, and if ten tubs shall have produced you that day eight ounces of gold, you can form a tolerable idea as to the value of your heap. But you know that while one part may bring but an ounce a load, there will be some rich tubs when that locality is reached, where the currant pudding lumps were deposited.
The washing season is a lively time, as nearly all are abroad. The merry joke is heard, and the loud laugh mingles with the rattling of stones in the hopper, the grinding of cradles, and splashing of water. There is some amusement in quizzing the machines employed. One day I saw an unfortunate Irishman without a mate, who had a most original contrivance for conducting his washing operations. The cradle, a very rude one, was two feet long, his dipper was a tin pannican cleverly fixed in a slit stick, and his puddling tub was a hole in the ground. Some in the dry season have taken known good stuff, put it over a fire and blown away the dust to get at the gold. In California, some have chosen a windy day to sift the dry stuff, placing a blanket or cloth on the ground to catch the heavy metal. A few at our mines have taken advantage of occasional summer showers to turn the water from a hill into a deserted hole, which they converted into a washing station. Though as a rule small parties had better pay cart-hire than keep a horse, yet I knew a couple of diggers who managed in the following manner. One got each day a load of stuff from a hole, which his mate carted to the creek, eight miles off, washed, and came in the next morning for another load. The latter, having his wife at head-quarters, would not only bring a supply of water to his worthy bachelor friend of the little oilskin tent, but now and then a loaf, a cake or a tart. The chief washing stations in the dry season at the Mount were, the Forest and Campbell Creeks, and the river Loddon. Those of Bendigo were the Sheepwash, Emu, and Bullock Creeks.
There is a story told of an old man, at Friar’s Creek, who put on his spectacles, and examining some stuff out of his hole, observed no gold in it. He was prevailed upon by somebody to wash a little of it in the morning, when the metal appeared. The old gentleman persisted in believing that none was there when he looked for it, exclaiming, “then sure the divil himself came in the night and put it there.”