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.