Five Years in New Zealand Part 7

CHAPTER XII.

LIFE ON THE GOLD DIGGINGS.

And now I will endeavour to picture my impression of the gold diggings as they appeared on that same evening.

After pa.s.sing through one of the most beautiful of the Lindis gorges we found ourselves at the entrance of a wide tract of open and undulating country, almost bare of anything beyond short yellow gra.s.s, encompa.s.sed on all sides by hills which stretched away westward to the snow-crowned mountains. The extent of the open was from one to two miles square, and through its centre--or nearly so--the Lindis flowed in a rocky bed.

Along the river and far up the downs on either side were sprinkled hundreds of little tents with their hundreds of fires and rising eddies of smoke. The banks of the river were crowded with men at work, some in the water, some out, others pitching tents or tending horses, some constructing rough furniture, cradles and long Toms for washing gold, hundreds of horses tethered among the tents or upon the open, and above all the suppressed hum of a busy mult.i.tude.

On all new gold diggings it was usual to establish a self-const.i.tuted form of government among the diggers themselves, which in the absence of any regular police force or law of the land was responsible for the protection and good conduct of the entire community. Some capable man was elected as president and chief, before whom all cases of misdemeanour were heard, and whose decisions and powers to inflict punishment were final. Under such rule, crude as it was, the utmost good conduct usually prevailed, and any glaring instances of robbery or crime were not only rare, but severely dealt with.

To this man we reported our arrival, and a camping ground was pointed out to us. It was too late to do anything towards preparing a permanent camp that night, but at daybreak the following morning we were hard at work, and by evening had made ourselves a comfortable hut.

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 gra.s.s 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 quant.i.ties 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 pa.s.s 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 subst.i.tuted, 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 quant.i.ties 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 quant.i.ty 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 ma.s.s 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE GOLD DIGGINGS.]

A fortnight after our arrival our provisions ran short, and we were obliged to have recourse to the stores, of which two had been started by an enterprising firm in Dunedin, and soon after we were nearly having a famine, owing to the stores themselves running short by reason of the drays conveying supplies having been snowed up in crossing the pa.s.s.

McLean was applied to, but he refused, and it was fortunate for him that a caravan arrived before the diggers were actually in want.

With this caravan arrived a pedlar and a liquor merchant, two such characters as cannot well be found except on a gold diggings. They carried with them a plentiful supply of slop clothes, boots, tools, and spirits, etc., and as luck--or ill luck--would have it, they pitched their camp alongside ours.

One of these men rarely did business without the other. If a digger came to purchase a pair of trousers or boots the bargain was never completed to the satisfaction of both parties without a gla.s.s of spirits at the adjacent grog shop to clinch it; and at night, when the diggers would drop round the latter for a gla.s.s, many pairs of breeches, boots, or other articles were disposed of under the happy influence of wine and company.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PEDDLARS AT THE DIGGINGS.]

These men are to be met with in all parts of the Colonies where crowds are collected, and they are usually of Jewish origin. There was nothing objectionable about them; they were simply shrewd, energetic men of business, ready without actual dishonesty to take every possible advantage of the wants and weaknesses of their fellow men. We had some pleasant evenings in their company, and many a jovial song and dance they treated us to, for which, no doubt, they succeeded in extracting good value for their wind and muscle.

Meat was scarce on the diggings, and at times for days together we had none. McLean indeed did not refuse to sell fat cattle, but he demanded prohibitive prices, and so it was customary to procure meat from a distance.

We had been now two months on the Lindis, our funds instead of increasing were diminishing, and we saw little or no hope of a change for the better. An exodus had already commenced, and the incomers were daily decreasing in number.

After holding a council meeting in our hut, it was decided that our camp be broken up, and that we should all return together as far as Davis's station, from whence two should proceed to Dunedin with the dray, while the other two should purchase some fat beasts and drive them to the diggings for sale.

The tents and tools were disposed of to a newly arrived group of Australian diggers at a fair enough price, and we disposed of all the remaining gear we did not actually need on the return journey, taking with us little beyond the empty dray, and all being ready we bade farewell to the Lindis diggings, and once more started on our uncertain and adventurous travels.

I omitted to mention that during our residence on the Lindis we were sadly troubled with rats. There must have been millions in the locality, and it was very difficult to guard our food from their depredations.

During the day they mostly disappeared until sundown, when they came in swarms to the tents. Sitting by the fire in the evening I have frequently killed a dozen with a short stick as they approached fearlessly in search of food, and during the night we got accustomed to sharing our common bed with a goodly number of the rascals.

CHAPTER XIII.

WE LEAVE THE LINDIS--ATTEMPT TO DRIVE FAT CATTLE TO THE DIGGINGS AND FAIL--RETURN TO DUNEDIN.

On the return journey we had as much company as when we came, and the road was even worse, but the dray being almost empty we experienced less difficulty in proceeding. The first day took us out of McLean's run, and the second saw us at nightfall on Miller and Gooche's side of the pa.s.s, which was still snowed over, but the traffic had worked the track up into deep slush and mud, and late in the evening we were near losing the dray and horses in a swamp we had inadvertently entered while seeking a better pa.s.sage. With the a.s.sistance of some friendly diggers we succeeded in extricating them, but the unfortunate accident prevented our proceeding further that night, and we pa.s.sed it on the borders of the swamp where not an atom of firewood could be obtained. The ground was in a puddle of melted snow and mud, not a dry spot to be found. We were muddy and wet from head to foot, without the means of making even a pannikin of tea, and the night was pitch dark. We just crouched down together by the dray, hungry, shivering, and f.a.gged. Sleep, of course, was out of the question, and we had constantly to clap our arms to keep the blood in circulation. Towards midnight intense frost set in. We smoked incessantly; in that, I think, was to a great extent our safety.

We did not remove the harness from the horses, which were tied to the dray without any food for the night. The following morning at eleven o'clock we arrived at Miller and Gooche's, where we had to melt the ice off our leggings and boots before we could remove them--and what a breakfast we ate! n.o.body who has not experienced what it is to starve on a healthy stomach for thirty hours and spend most of that time on a mountain pa.s.s under snow and frost can understand how we appreciated our food.

The next day we reached Davis's, when Fowler and Legge left us for Dunedin, and Smith and I arranged with Davis for the purchase of a couple of fat steers for 12 10s. each, hoping that if we succeeded in driving them to the diggings we would double our money.

In the afternoon we went with Davis to the run, and selected the animals, which we drove with a mob to the stockyard. Here we separated our pair and put them in another yard for a start in the morning.

Driving a couple of wild bullocks alone from their run is, as I have already explained, by no means an easy task, and Davis warned us that these would give us trouble--indeed, I believe he considered us slightly mad to attempt to drive the beasts such a distance at all.

On first starting we had no small difficulty in preventing them returning to the run, and it cost us some hard galloping to get them away on the road to Miller and Gooche's, where it was our intention to yard for the night.

We had proceeded to within a mile of the station, when the brutes for the twentieth time bolted, on this occasion taking to the hills over some low spurs and rocky ground, intersected with ravines and gullies. I was riding hard to intercept them when I was suddenly sent flying on to my head, turning a somersault on to a rough bank of spear gra.s.s. Shaking myself together and somewhat recovering from the shock, I discovered the tail and stern of my steed projecting above the ground, the remainder of him being invisible. It appeared he had planted his fore feet in a deep fissure covered with long gra.s.s, and just large enough to take in head and fore parts. The shock sent me over, as I described, while he remained stuck.

It was a ridiculous position, and tired, sore from the spear-gra.s.s, and annoyed as I was, I could not refrain from a hearty laugh at our predicament before attempting to extricate my unhappy quadruped; this I succeeded in doing with some difficulty, and found him, with the exception of some few scratches, quite unhurt.

I again mounted, but the wily steers had disappeared, and Smith was nowhere to be seen, I rode quietly on and presently discovered the latter, himself and horse dead beat, and using very unparliamentary language at our bad luck, at the beasts, and at gold diggings in general.

We had nothing for it but to go back to Miller's for the night. The following day we returned to Davis's, where we found the bullocks had arrived the night before, and Davis, after a laugh at our misadventures, returned us the 25, and the same evening we left for Dunedin. We camped some ten miles further down the Waitaki, with a very eccentric personage in the form of an old retired clergyman of the Church of England. He lived like a hermit in a small hut under the hills, which he had built himself, as well as some outbuildings and a capital little bakery, which he was very proud of. He cultivated a small plot of ground, where he grew potatoes and other vegetables and kept a cow, and he possessed several cats and a couple of fine collie dogs. He gave food--especially bread--to any traveller pa.s.sing who needed it, and free quarters for the night. He showed us a small canoe in which he was in the habit of paddling himself across the river, and was always ready to obey a call to any, even distant, station where his services were needed in a case of illness, death, or marriage. He was a most entertaining host, and we enjoyed the night we spent with him in his curious and lonely habitation. We heard that he had suffered some severe domestic calamity, which drove him to his present lonely life, but he spent his days in doing all the good that lay in his power, and doubtless many a pa.s.sing traveller was the better in more ways than one for meeting the old recluse.

On arriving at Dunedin we found that Legge had already disposed of the dray satisfactorily, and Smith finding a purchaser for his horse he parted with him, thus placing us all in funds. It was decided then that Smith and Legge should take the coasting steamer to Port Lyttelton, while I proceeded overland with my own horse and "Jack the Devil,"

arranging to meet at Christchurch. Fowler left us at Dunedin, and we saw him no more.

My journey back was uneventful, but happening to meet with Bains, of the Post, the original owner of my horse, we exchanged mounts for a consideration of 5 transferred from his pocket to mine. He wanted his harness horse back, while I needed only a saddle horse, so the exchange was a satisfactory one in every way, and enabled me to hasten my journey to Christchurch, where I found Legge and Smith awaiting me.

We sold Jack for twice what he cost us, and squared accounts for the trip, which, although it did not fulfill the brilliant expectations with which we started upon it, was nevertheless an interesting and pleasant experience, and one which we would have been sorry to have missed.

I found home letters awaiting me, with renewed requests from my father to return while there was time to resume my studies, and offering me further a.s.sistance if I needed it. I declined all, feeling that I could not now renounce the life I had chosen, and it would not be right of me, in opposition to his opinion, to accept any financial a.s.sistance even had I needed it, which was not the case. I had tried most phases of a colonial life, had gained a great deal of experience, and knew that I could always obtain remunerative employment, and after I had enjoyed a little more rambling and freedom I could decide on some fixed line to settle down upon. In the meantime there was no immediate hurry, and I was very young.