Page:Banking Under Difficulties- Or Life On The Goldfields Of Victoria, New South Wales And New Zealand (1888).pdf/38

Rh creek. Many of the claims were 24 ft. square. Four men’s ground yielded 40 lbs. weight of gold. A party of Cornishmen living close to us did remarkably well; instead of washing-up as they got out the washdirt, as was done in most instances, they piled it up in a heap close to their own tent, protected by three or four dogs, and only washed up when the claim was worked out. It was a pretty sight to see their heaps of washdirt after a shower of rain; nuggets varying in weight from 2 or 3 pennyweights to an ounce, sticking out in all directions—a regular jeweller’s shop.

I was a young digger, being only thirteen years of age, but there were no schools on the diggings in those days, and all hands had to make themselves generally useful. My first attempt at digging was in the creek, opposite Captain Simpson’s store, where I managed to knock out half an ounce a day, but a rush breaking out at the back of where Watson’s store now stands, and at that time known as Lushington Hill, I left for that place. At the top part of the hill the claims were from 30 to 40 feet deep, and very rich. The gold was found in the pipe clay; so rich were some of the claims that the lucky owners kept watch below all night, armed with revolvers. Two of my brothers had a claim at the bottom of the hill, in the shallow ground, six feet sinking; on returning from work one day, they said, “Come with us in the morning, and we will show you a hole next to ours which the owner has left; shepherd for twentyfour hours, then jump it.” I did so; on going down the hole I found it had not been bottomed, the party sinking it having come on a large flat stone which he had mistaken for the bottom, this I took up with the assistance of my brothers, and then I found the true bottom, about eight inches of wash dirt with gold showing throughout. This I put in a bag in the orthodox fashion, and carried on my shoulder to the creek, some 200 yards away; there I put it into a tub and puddled until I had extracted all the clay, then put it through the cradle, panned off, and to my delight in weighing off at night after it had been carefully dried and cleaned, found I had three ounces of gold, or about nine pounds sterling for my day’s work. Next day I commenced to drive, i.e., to tunnel, put in a drive about three feet high, and as many wide and long, when I took out the wash dirt. On picking it out the gold appeared so thick that I jumped out of the hole and called to my brothers to come and see the vein, several about heard me and came rushing over to where I was. I went through the usual process, and at the end of the day was rewarded with another three ounces. This sort of thing continued until the claim was worked out. My next did not turn out so well, in fact was what is known in digging parlance as a duffer, i.e., no good. The rush soon broke out at Preshaw’s Flat, and although late in the day our party managed to secure a