AN INTERIOR VIEW OF OUR “LOGIE”
CHAPTER XXII
HOW THE PRECIOUS STONES ARE FOUND
THEN we settled down to steady mining. We built a shed for our tools, and we got the hand pump out, we prepared sieves for jigging and we made “Long Toms” and swinging sieves, washing troughs and all the necessary apparatus.
If you had happened to come across our outfit it would have seemed very crude to you. Rough washing boxes, rough troughs through which we turned water, shapeless holes in the ground partly filled with water, great heaps of worthless gravel, the dismal sucking sound of the old hand pump, and a clutter of boards, pans, shovels, and picks.
Yet we had one of the few good mines down there. The “pork knockers” have no mines; they journey from place to place up and down the river with pick and shovel and sieve, with a small quantity of food on their backs, and make shelter wherever they happen to be. They generally borrow money for the outfit, river traders bring up food and gin—I am sorry to say that it is generally more gin than food—and these pork knockers, niggers for the most part, exchange their few diamonds for the strong drink and food and keep on. They generally come out at the end of the dry season with enough, or about enough, to square their debts and leave a little over to live on until next season when they borrow again and once more set out.
They have to give a certain percentage of their diamonds to the British Government for the privilege of mining. We had to pay $25 for every 250 carats, which was not excessive at all, when you figure that 250 carats of diamond are worth around $2,000 these days.
We sunk a shaft sixty feet, which was remarkable in that locality as the gravel is loose and washes in with rains. We propped it up with planks but had to keep constant watch of it. Finally water seeped through faster than our hand pump could get it out.
A LONG TOM DIAMOND WASHER
