Page:The three colonies of Australia.djvu/397

Rh A FOOT JOURNEY TO MOUNT ALEXANDER. "We started for these mines on foot, each carrying his swag—mine weighed 50 lbs. We had no other alternative, for there was no dray to be got. I found the roads as bad as I had heard. We saw about 100 drays on the road stuck fast. We could only make fifteen miles a day, so it took us seven days; and when we arrived I was knocked up with cold, owing to being continually wet through between heavy rains and wading through creeks up to the middle. I and another got lost once on the mountains for eight hours; but, as luck would have it, we fell in with our party at the Bendigo diggings, which, when all mustered, consisted of five. To-day ends our first week's work; my share consists of £15, besides half an ounce I made myself. "I enjoy very good health now, otherwise it would be a hard case, as doctors charge £5 5s. for looking at you. "You would scarcely know me. My hair is very long, I wear an old cap, a flannel shirt next my skin, and a blue one over all, with a belt round my waist, where hang a brace of pistols and a knife eighteen inches long, and a pair of antepopelos [sic] up to my haunches. I am always covered with mud and soaked with water. You may judge of the weather when I tell you, that when we rise in the morning our blankets are covered with frost." FOREST CREEK. "The surface of the hills in this district, in many places, is quite white from the quantity of small quartz, from the size of a pin's head to a man's head. I tried surface washing, and knocked out an ounce a day, taking eight or nine inches of the surface like the above, the quartz being embedded in black loam. I also found gold in a red clay under the above, say from nine to fifteen inches under the surface. This was heavier gold, as if it had by gravity gone through the loam and rested in the clay. The richest surfacing here has been on Spring Hill, which is the highest part of the range between Forest Creek and Fryer's Creek, the summit being about 600 feet above these creeks, which are four or five miles from each other. Surfacing is as uncertain as sinking. You may wash a whole day and get nothing, or you may happen upon some ounces in a square foot. I have tried many places, and invariably found at least a few streaks of gold in each dishful. "The quartz lying in this soil I may liken to the fruit in a good