Our butcher would not let us have less than half a sheep at a time, for which we paid 8s. I was not good housekeeper enough to know how much it weighed, but the meat was very good. Flour was then a shilling a pound, or two hundred pounds weight for nine pounds in money. Sugar was 1s. 6d., and tea 3s. 6d. Fortunately we were Well provided with these three latter articles.
The hungry diggers did ample justice to the dinner I had provided for them. They brought home a tin-dish full of surface soil, which in the course of the afternoon I attempted to wash.
Tin-dish-washing is difficult to describe. It requires a watchful eye and a skilful hand; it is the most mysterious department of the gold-digging business. The tin dish (which, of course, is round) is generally about eighteen inches across the top, and twelve across the bottom, with sloping sides of three or four inches deep. The one I used was rather smaller. Into it I placed about half the "dirt"—digger's technical term for earth, or soil—that they had brought, filled the dish up with water, and then with a thick stick commenced making it into a batter; this was a most necessary commencement, as the soil was of a very stiff clay. I then let this batter—I know no name more appropriate for it—settle, and carefully poured off the water at the top. I now added some clean water, and repeated the operation of mixing it up; and after doing this several times, the "dirt," of course, gradually diminishing, I was overjoyed to see a few bright specks, which I carefully picked out, and with renewed energy continued this by no means elegant work. Before the party returned to tea I had washed out all the stuff, and procured from it nearly two pennyweights of gold-dust, worth about 6s. or 7s.
Tin-dish-washing is generally done beside a stream, and it is astonishing how large a quantity of "dirt" those who have the knack of doing it well and quickly can knock off in the course of the day. To do this, however, requires great manual dexterity, and much gold is lost by careless washing. A man once extracted ten pounds weight of the precious metal from a heap of soil which his mate had washed too hurriedly.
In the evening Joe made his re-appearance, carrying another sack on his shoulders, which contained a number of empty bottles, and now for the first time we became initiated into the BRAN mystery which had often puzzled us on the road—it seemed so strange a thing to carry up to the diggings. Joe laughed at our innocence, and denied having told us anything approaching a falsehood; a slight suppression of the truth was all he would plead guilty to. I verily believe William had put him up to this dodge, to make us smile when we should have felt annoyed. Being taxed with deceit, said he: "I told you two-thirds truth; there wanted but two more letters to make it BRANDY," and with the greatest SANG-FROID he drew out a small keg of brandy from the first sack and half-filled the bottles with the spirit, after which he filled them all up to the neck with water. The bottles were then corked, and any or all of them politely offered to us at the rate of 30s a piece. We declined purchasing, but he sold them all during the evening, for which we were rather glad, as, had they been discovered by the officials in our tent, a fine of 50 pounds would have been the consequence of our foolish comrades good-nature and joke-loving propensities.
We afterwards found that Master Joe had played the same trick with our shipmates and with the two doctors, who had bought a tent and settled themselves near our old place by Montgomery's store.
SATURDAY, 25.—The two holes were "bottomed" before noon with no paying result. It had been hard work, and they were rather low-spirited about it. The rest of the day they spent in washing some surface-soil, and altogether collected about I ounce and a half of gold-dust, counting the little I had washed out on the Friday. In the evening it was all dried by being placed in a spade over a quick fire. We had before determined to square accounts and divide the gold every Saturday night, but this small quantity was not worth the trouble, so it was laid by in the digger's usual treasury, a German match-box. These round boxes hold on an average eight ounces of gold.
These two unproductive holes had not been very deep. The top, or surface soil, for which a spade or shovel is used, was of clay. This was succeeded by a strata almost as hard as iron—technically called "burnt stuff,"—which robbed the pick of its points nearly as soon as the blacksmith had steeled them at a charge of 2s. 6d. a point. Luckily for their arms, this strata was but thin, and the yellow or blue clay which followed was comparatively easy work—here and there an awkward lump of quartz required the use of the pick. Suddenly they came to some glittering particles of yellow, which, with heartfelt delight they hailed as gold. It WAS MICA. Many are at first deceived by it, but it is soon distinguished by its weight, as the mica will blow away with the slightest puff. After a little useless digging among the clay, they reached the solid rock, and thus having fairly "bottomed," the holes to no purpose, they abandoned them.
SUNDAY, 26.—Although impossible at the diggings to keep this day with those outward observances which are customary in civilized life, we attempted to make as much difference as possible between the day of rest and that of work. Frank performed the office of chaplain, and read the morning service in the calm and serious manner which we expected from him.
I was rather amused to see the alacrity with which, when this slight service was over, they all prepared to assist me in the formation of a huge plum-pudding for the Sunday's dinner. Stoning plums and chopping suet seemed to afford them immense pleasure—I suppose it was a novelty; and, contrary to the fact implied in the old adage, "too many cooks spoil the broth" our pudding turned out A1.