We were sinking the shaft; and I was down in it—at a depth of one hundred and twenty feet from the surface of the earth. One of my mates—as the readiest place to get clear of it—had thrown his oil-cloth coat over the windlass. The coat, thus carelessly placed, slipped off; and came down the shaft—in its descent causing a rustling, roaring noise, that, to me below, sounded somewhat like thunder!
I looked up. All was dark above; and the idea occurred to me, that the shaft had given way at the “drift”—a place about sixty feet above my head, where we had gone through a strata of wet sand. The noisy coat at length reached the bottom, and I found myself unhurt; but, so frightened had I been, that I was unable to go on with my work—until after I had gone up to the surface, swallowed a glass of brandy, and taken a few draws of the pipe!
The business of mining, in the Victoria diggings, is attended with considerable danger; and those who conduct it should be men of temperate habits—as well as possessed of some judgment. Every one on the gold fields, being his own master—and guided only by his own will—of course there are many who work in a reckless manner, and often under the influence of drink. As a consequence, accidents are, or were at that time, of daily occurrence.
When an accident resulted from intoxication, it was generally not the drunken man himself—but his mate—who was the sufferer—the latter having a bucket, or some heavy implement, dropped upon his head, from a height of a hundred feet.
Gold miners, as a class, are exceedingly indifferent to danger; and careless about the means of avoiding it. They will often continue to work in a shaft, that they know must soon “cave” in; but they do so under the hope, that the accident will occur during the night, or while they are at dinner. So long as there is a possibility of their escaping, hope tells them they are “all right”—too often a deceitful tale.
While engaged in gold-digging, I had frequent opportunities of testing a doctrine often put forward by tobacco-smokers: that the “weed” is a powerful antidote to fear. Several times have I been under ground, where I believed myself in danger; and have been haunted by fear that kept me in continued agony, until my pipe was lit—when my apprehensions seemed at once to vanish literally in a cloud of smoke!
There is something in the use of tobacco, that is unexplained, or untaught, in any work of philosophy, natural or unnatural, that I have yet read. The practice of smoking is generally condemned, by those who do not smoke. But certainly, there are times, when a man is the better for burning a little tobacco, although the immoderate use of it, like all other earthly blessings, may be converted into a curse.
My readers may think, that a disquisition on tobacco can have but little to do with the Adventures of a Rolling Stone. But why should they object to knowing my opinions on things in general, since the adventures themselves have been often either caused or controlled by these very opinions? I have entered into a minute detail of my experience in mining affairs, under the belief, that no sensible reader will think it uninteresting; and, still continuing in this belief, I purpose going a little farther into the subject.
While engaged in gold-digging, I have often been led to notice the influence of the mind over the physical system.
In washing dirt that contains but little gold, the body soon becomes weary—so much so, that the work is indeed toil. On the other hand, when the “dirt” is “rich,” the digger can exert himself energetically from sunrise to sunset, without feeling fatigue at the termination of such a long spell of labour.