Page:Victoria, with a description of its principal cities, Melbourne and Geelong.djvu/117

 returning to their tents, some singly, some in companies, but all on the alert, and armed to the teeth; it was plain, confidence and security had fled from Golden Point, and that each for himself was both the spirit and the letter of the law. The next morning four of us were speedily at work throwing the gravel out of our claim, working steadily and together; after about three hours' work, we returned to breakfast, then worked till a short time after noon, when we had our dinners; then again until dark, when we had tea or supper, as in bush phrase we termed it. This only lasted a short time, as we afterwards worked through the day, making our only meal, after breakfast, late in the evening. When we returned in the evening, the gravel was out, or almost so; and the next day we commenced on a hard, compact bed of a red concrete marl, intermingled with boulders of granite and quartz, and also with gray marl. In the meantime I was at home preparing breakfast of beef, tea, and damper; when the others returned, they told me it was very hard work, the picks making but little impression. At it they went again, and the three succeeding days saw us still driving furiously at the compact mass. At the end of that time, however, M——, in throwing out some of the rubbish, discovered a lump of quartz intermingled with small gold grains, like peas; a short time sufficed to clear out the grains, and a closer search was rewarded by the discovery of nearly four ounces in the interstices of the cluster of