CHAPTER XI
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The East Coast.
CHAPTER XI.
"There is a pleasure in the pathless woods."
Byron.
MONDAY, February.--Yesterday, Seth Fearnley and myself crossed over the ranges to the east coast; on our way I took my companion to the place I have named Golden Falls. Our chief object in taking this journey was to find a suitable harbour on that side of the peninsula to which we could sail round in the whale-boat, taking such provisions and tools as would be necessary to enable Seth to remain alone and commence working the mine.
On our way home we were lucky enough to catch a pig, so did not return empty handed after so long a day's absence.
Sailed for Auckland in the whale-boat.
Tuesday.--Arrived in town after a good run across the Frith, carrying the land breeze with us nearly to
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the Sandspit Island, and again falling in with it after we were through that passage. We shall leave again to-night after completing our purchases.
Wednesday.--Got away last night on the top of high-water, with all we required on board except that we had stupidly forgotten matches, consequently I had "no smoke" through the night, or this morning; however, at about 4.30, being off Cape Colville, and only a mile from shore, the wind being light, and what there was ahead, we pulled in, and landed in a sandy bay. Here we soon found a dry and suitable piece of wood, and rubbed fire.
Mahoe is the best for this purpose, but kauri, or almost any kind of wood will do--if you know how to go to work.
Most savage people have a method of getting fire by the friction of one piece of wood against another. The Maori plan is to place a piece of wood before them in a convenient and steady position, then taking a smaller piece, say the size of a carpenter's pencil, and holding it with both hands, the same as a pen is held in writing, only in this case the left hand supplements the right. Some grasp the piece of wood with one hand over the other; at any rate, you now commence to rub slowly the point of the
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How to rub fire.
smaller bit of wood against the flat surface of the larger, with the grain, and reciprocating over a space of, say, six inches, increasing your speed and pressure gradually. It is hard work, but do not stop; presently it smokes, and you perspire; then chars, and you are ready to drop with fatigue: let your companion have some tinder or punk, or something of that sort near. In the groove you have by this time worn in the larger bit of wood, and with proper manipulation, fire will appear; this nucleus must be placed in a big handful of dry leaves, and then whirling your arm round and round, like a mad windmill, you will fan the spark into a flame.
Any one may do it who has sufficient strength, and has the knack. It is awfully hard work, I can assure you, and I doubt the accomplishment of the feat unless you be in good condition, and are able to run a quarter of a mile in, say, sixty seconds.
Having obtained fire, we easily made tinder by burning korari, or flax stalks, and placed the charcoal thus obtained in an empty sardine tin, which, with an assortment of flint stones, and the back of one's knife, made us independent of matches.
However, not content with this, or perhaps loath to leave the good fire we had made ashore, we con-
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structed a hearth amidships in the boat, by placing there a few stones, with a coating of earth on top, on which we could keep a smouldering fire of dry wood.
Afloat again and steering south-east, and rounding Cape Colville, it was about sundown when we came to an anchor between the mainland and an islet. Here we passed the night sleeping in the boat.
Thursday.--Very little wind this morning until at high-water, at 11.30, a breeze sprang up from the west, and we could nicely lay our course.
Presently we let out a line astern and caught some kahuwai and two baracuta.
Towards night, concluded we were near to our destination, so pulled ashore into a bay where we beached the boat, and had a good supper, kahuwai and potatoes; slept in a tent we rigged up with the boat's sail.
Friday.--It was about midday when we ran into the harbour we had observed last Sunday from the edge of the forest.
Steering up the harbour we lost the wind, then taking to the oars, we pulled up into a creek about three miles, where we camped for the night.
Saturday.--Taking advantage of high-water this
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The haunted forest.
morning, we forced a sinuous way through the mangroves, and finally landed about two miles from where we camped last night, and where a quantity of rushes growing near the water's edge made the concealment of the boat complete.
Landed our cargo, of which the subjoined is a list: Flour, fifty pounds; sugar, six pounds; tea, one pound; salt, two pounds; pepper, a quarter of a pound; tobacco, one pound; salt pork, five pieces weighing about thirty pounds altogether; potatoes, twenty pounds; two boxes of sardines, a Yankee axe, a pick, a shovel, a few nails, and a tomahawk: all these, together with a pair of blankets and a few articles of clothing belonging to Seth, I estimated to weigh 200 pounds, and which we made up into four convenient pikau, two of which we carried inland to the Golden Falls that same afternoon where we passed the night.
At night in a great forest one frequently hears sounds strange and weird, when no wind stirs the trees, and the fire has burnt low, all is wonderfully still. Suddenly, perhaps, you notice a lengthened-out kind of noise of which you have no remembrance of ever having heard the like before. A slight eddy of wind has passed over the trees, and a branch
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rubbing somewhere up aloft against another has produced this first part of the sound; the latter part is the back-lash, as it were, of the branch returning to its original position. Then there are nocturnal insects who make quaint and unlikely noises; I have also heard several times, as it were, a huge animal rushing through the bush, though when morning came not a footprint was to be seen, not a twig fresh broken. Some forests are said to be haunted, and no wonder; that at Marquesas with its ghostly woodman is a good example. Auricular delusions are not so startling as optical, yet still I contend that a man requires to have his heart in the right place to live alone amongst the great trees.
At different times over twenty men at the Great Barrier Island heard, as it were, a huge, creature speeding through the forest; even the dogs were frightened, bristling up their hair and howling.
The wonderful "woorser," as the bushmen had named it, was heard in many different parts of the island, some, indeed, were ready to swear that they had seen the monster; these, however, were mariners, a calling proverbial as producing spinners of tough yarns.
However, three children did see a large unknown
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Seth's house.
animal bound along the beach, where they had been playing, and then enter the forest. The eldest, a clever child, made a drawing of the creature, which bore, it was said, a strong resemblance to a kangaroo, but as that marsupial is not found in New Zealand, some said it was only an old bush pig--others again thought it might have been a seal.
Sunday.--Returned to the creek where we had left the boat, when, after a rest and something to eat, we set out back again to Golden Falls, each of us with a pikau of about fifty pounds' weight, being the balance of goods required for Seth to start housekeeping.
Monday.--Pitched upon a spot near the fall on a little flat or shelf, on which to build a house, it being also well above the water-mark of the highest fresh. We found manuka poles and nikau in plenty, not half a mile away, and so by night had nearly completed a "whare" six feet by ten.
Tuesday.--Finished the house, having a doorway at one end-the door Seth will make at his leisure.
The last thing before dark we knocked off some pieces of quartz rich with gold, parts of the reef that stood out from the softer rock, and were easy to get at; these we reduced by hammering off such portions
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as seemed to contain the least gold, until by this rough-and-ready process we had about twenty pounds of specimens, one-fifth of which was good gold. Afterwards, in the morning, when we came by daylight to examine the pieces we had broken off, we found so much waste that we concluded to rig up some kind of crusher by which we hoped to save the greater portion of the precious metal.
Wednesday.--Set off for the coast where we had left the boat, taking with us the gold we had prepared over night; this I intended, by some means, to convert into money in Auckland, although as yet how to do so I hardly saw my way.
Found the boat as we had left her, and after filling the kegs with fresh water and shipping about 400 pounds of stones as ballast, I bade rather an anxious good-bye to Seth and set sail. I had some cooked meat, and a sufficiency of bread to last a week or more, plenty of tobacco, and one bottle of brandy.
The wind drew rather ahead, and I made a short "leg" out to sea, and then tacked, keeping near the shore during the night so as to catch the land-breeze.
Thursday.--During the early part of last night I
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A lone at sea.
made slow progress, the land-wind being only light, and a heavy swell setting in from the north-east; so heavy indeed ran the sea that I felt sure it must have been blowing hard from that direction.
After a while the wind died away. The calm, however, did not last long, before a breeze sprang up from the south and east-a fair wind for me. By degrees it freshened up a bit and I edged away from the land, not being sure of the position of the Mercury Islands, except that they were somewhere ahead, so wished to sail outside of everything.
I carried on in this way for about an hour, steering, as near as I could guess, N.W., for I could not properly see the card of my compass, the night being very dark. To be sure I had the extemporary tinder-box Seth and I had contrived and furnished when ashore at Cape Colville, but to obtain a light by such means and manage an open boat in a seaway was out of the question.
When morning broke, though before it was fairly light, the first thing I did was to have a nip of brandy and water, the next to look round and see imposition.
"There," said I, aloud, "are the Mercury Islands; but what the 'blank' is that?"
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Now, I hold all Swearing to be very contemptible, and a folly to be carefully avoided, if for no other reason than that it perhaps more than anything proclaims the very limited extent of a man's vocabulary.
It was the spectacle before me, coupled perhaps with the brandy, that caused the above slip of the tongue.
A mile to windward lay a schooner apparently water-logged and helpless, rolling heavily in the trough of the sea. I also observed several people in the fore-rigging waving signals to me, and doubtless shouting, though that I could not hear until I was somewhat nearer.
The wreck being to windward, I had my work set to beat up to her in so heavy a sea. However, I could at all events hold my own, whilst the schooner drifted down before the wind and sea in my direction.
I had only one sail on the boat, a sprit-sail, and this was reefed, for it blew hard. However, the boat worked well, and I had the great advantage of a steer-oar in turning her to windward.
I was soon near enough to see that there were five men clinging to or lashed in the fore-rigging. The mainmast had been broken off a few feet below the "hounds." Presently, as I tacked, coming
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The wreck.
within easy hail, namely, about sixty yards, I sung out, "What schooner is that?"
"The Fair Maid of Perth," was the reply.
The sea was breaking over the wreck now and again in such a manner that I saw much danger in going alongside, such a rush of water, indeed, that no man could have withstood, as it poured across the deck. The schooner was laden with timber, for with other freight she would infallibly have gone to the bottom. Those on board had lashed some pieces of scantling eight or ten feet above the deck to the mast and to the shrouds on either side, thus forming a small platform on which they stood, clear above the rush of water as every recurring wave swept over the schooner. Several of the men on the wreck were all this time making frantic signs and shouting for me to take them into the boat. All except the captain were unmanned and demoralized, and I foresaw great risk, were I near enough, of all the crew of the schooner crowding on board of me and swamping the boat; so on my going about again, and being quite as close to the vessel as was safe, I told the captain and the men if they wished me to save their lives both he and the rest of them must consider themselves under my orders and be quiet,
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otherwise we should all be lost. This calmed the shipwrecked people somewhat, and they agreed to what I said, only urging me to be quick and take them into the boat, as the schooner, they declared, would break up directly.
Whilst beating up to the wreck I had got a coir-line ready, and being now as near as I dared to go, after making fast one end to the stern of the boat, I threw the other on board the vessel, ordering the man who caught the line to make fast but not haul in upon me. I then stepped quickly forward and brailed up the sail. I now rode as it were at anchor to the lee of the schooner, the brailed-up sail holding some wind, drew the boat, as far as the line would admit, away from the wreck. At times, truly, the rope stretched so as almost to part, and only by slacking off or hauling in at the proper time we averted such a catastrophe.
Watching my opportunity, I hauled up to the wreck and succeeded in taking off two of the crew, when some heavy seas breaking over the vessel, I slacked away a bit. Again drawing near, I managed to get the remaining three into the boat. After this we cut away from the wreck, and, with the wind nearly aft, set sail for the Mercury Islands.
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The wreck.
Handing the steer-oar to the captain of the late Fair Maid of Perth, I proceeded to find some refreshment for my passengers, giving to each a little bread and meat and a nip of brandy. The poor men had been forty hours without food or drink, and were ravenous, and so thirsty!
After a while the men, being somewhat strengthened, began to talk, each rather loudly, proclaiming what he had done or said during their late trying circumstances, striving, as the lower orders are wont, to outvoice each other and relieve themselves of their many words, barely taking in the meaning of the oath-bespattered talk of their fellows. The captain alone said little, but from him I learned that The Fair Maid of Perth had sailed from Auckland for Duneden with a cargo of timber; that whilst the crew were at dinner the cook had taken the wheel. They were running at the time before a north-easter, and a heavy sea was on. The cook, not minding his steering, let her jibe, which misadventure snapped the boom in two, and broke the mainmast just below the hounds. In the confusion that ensued, the schooner came up too near the wind, when a green sea struck her, giving the vessel such a twist as must have started some of her wood ends. She
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now began to settle down, the pumps making no impression on the leak, and would have certainly gone to the bottom had not her hold been filled up with boards and scantling.
Friday.--This morning the shipwrecked crew being much refreshed, we set sail for town.
Saturday.--Reached Rangitoto Reef, where we camped for the night.
Sunday.--Arrived in Auckland this morning, and, after so much roughing it, fully appreciate a dinner at the Victoria Hotel.
I received much commendation for saving the lives of the crew of The Fair Maid of Perth, and being sufficiently well known as a wanderer and amateur collector of bird's skins, and one who frequently took open-boat voyages, I escaped much questioning as to my having no one with me when I fell in with the schooner.
Monday.--Ordered certain ironwork at Mr. Bourne's foundry that I wanted to enable me to set up a small machine with which to crush quartz.
Finding I should have to wait some days for the ironwork, I determined upon going for a short trip to the Waikato River.
Tuesday.--Having engaged a good horse at the
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A trip to the Waikato.
Exchange Hotel over night, I set off early this morning.
For the first ten miles after leaving Auckland the soil appeared to be fairly good where there was enough of it to cover the scoriae rocks, but soon after passing Otahuhu the quality of the land became such as would hardly repay a farmer to work. Cantering on at a good pace for some ten miles more, I entered the forest. Here, for upwards of an hour, the track leading up and down hill and across bridgeless creeks, was altogether too rough to allow me to travel out of a walk.
At length, through an opening in the forest, from a high "razor back," I had a magnificent view of the Waikato, studded at this point with beautiful wooded islands.
When about two miles from the river I turned off the main road to the right along a track that led to the Maori settlement of Tuakau, where it was my intention to pass the night.
Distance from town, thirty-six miles.
Wednesday.--The natives almost always receive travellers with hospitality and courtesy. Of course they beg, not after the manner of the European mendicant, but asking for tobacco as any of "us"
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might of a friend if one's pouch or cigar-case chanced to be empty. My experience is that it is the best to be liberal in this matter, but with judgment, giving to the right men or women. Do not let savages think you an extravagant fellow or a fool, nor ever allow your pipe to pass from mouth to mouth, as some pakeha tutua do. Maories are quick to know a gentleman by his ways, and very justly conclude a dirty skinned, finger-nail clogged rough to be a slave white man. Being able to speak the language is a great advantage in all dealings with natives, although I have heard the reverse asserted. However, no one will be surprised at my positive assurance that the former view is the correct one, when I mention that being a Maori-talker saved me from being shot--murdered in cold blood by a couple of fanatical savages, and the same knowledge has at various times pulled me through numerous troubles.
I hired a Maori man at this place (Tuakau) as guide for my further journey up country.
Returning to the main road I had been travelling yesterday, we continued over and down some very steep ranges to the river-side at a place called Te Ia, where there were some old Maori fortifications. Riding on our way we followed the banks of the
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Thinking of--nothing.
Waikato for some miles, at times skirting along the edges of an immense swamp.
Of the whole country, as seen from the road up to Ngaruawahia, I should say that only a small portion is suitable for agriculture. Eventually the swamps may be turned to good account, as in most instances the soil is of excellent quality, and could be drained and brought into cultivation at a cost not greatly exceeding that of clearing forest lands; also, being an extended flat, could be much easier managed and worked than the undulatory and broken parts of the country. Unlike the swamps of other countries, their neighbourhood can rarely be considered unhealthy.
Thursday.--Spent the day here at Ngaruawahia smoking, chaffing with the Maori girls, sitting in the sun, and thinking of -- nothing.
This portion of the province of Auckland is a kind of refuge for the destitute. I mean those useless mortals coming under the appellation of broken-down swells, pakeha under a cloud, a sort of cannot dig, to beg I am not ashamed people.
Friday.--Left Ngaruawahia this morning with a party of natives who were also going to Auckland on horseback. We took it easy, excepting that when
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on the level skirting the swamps we raced like boys on donkeys at a fair, or rode as fox-hunters in a muddy English lane.
Passed the night at Pokeno, a Maori settlement a little off the main road on the right-hand side.
Travelling in this style would not suit those who make comfort their summum bonum, or who become morose under very plain or insipid fare; good people who are always preparing for or expecting a great run of happiness in the future, which never comes; whose chief pleasure is in anticipation, or whose constitution, mental sometimes, physical sometimes, urges them to waste present opportunities of wholesome youthful jollity.
In that other land we may regret our past folly when in the flesh, of hoarding up supposed adjuncts to our happiness, as squirrels lay up a winter store; but I never heard that the rodents had a jolly time of it, or a feast during their hibernation, or that there was much fun in those "good times coming boys."
Saturday.--Arrived in town.
I found my ironwork completed, of which the following is a list:--
A casting, cheese-shaped, six inches in diameter by two inches thick.
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Primitive crushing.
A piece of wrought ironwork like a monster pump tack, the head thereof five inches in diameter by two inches thick, the shank or nail part one and a half inches square by nine inches long.
One ring four inches in diameter.
Two larger rings ten inches in diameter.
Two pieces of bar-iron, twelve inches long by three inches square, turned up for three and a half inches at one end.
All these I nailed up in two boxes, one marked "Flat Fig Tobacco," and the other "Best Sydney Soap." I did not want prying folk at the mill to see and wonder for what on earth this ironwork was intended.
When I gave the order to old Mr. Bourne he naturally wanted to know to what purpose I was going to put this ironwork.
"Mr. Bourne," said I, "if my experiment succeeds you will know some day; if it, however, fails, I shall have one less, through not telling you, to bore me by asking how I am getting on with my machine."
The truth is not always to be told. I believe he thought the ironwork was intended to form part of some contrivance by which to clean flax.
I also bought at "Gundry's," the chymist's shop,
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all the quicksilver he had to spare, namely, three pounds, at 7s. 6d. per pound.
Wrote to a commission agent, in Sydney, to send me a more considerable quantity.
Having got all my traps and some provisions on board my boat, and having engaged a couple of natives named respectively Mamahu and Pita, for my crew, we set sail just whilst the 58th Regiment were beating tattoo.
Sunday.--At sea. Were my two hired Maori men and myself silent cooped up in a boat, or did we talk much?
I may certainly say we did not lack conversation. We chatted together about the wind and the tides, the run of the latter my Maori crew understood perfectly, but were unbelieving when I spoke of the moon's influence on the great oceans, rather preferring to adhere to an old opinion by which it appeared that the cry of a certain sea-bird was all potent in its mysterious action on the ebb and flow.
Words, mere words, have no meaning in the ears of my two companions, and it is hopeless to convince them of the folly of their theory of the tides, hopeless, indeed, as might be the attempt to obscure the sun with a boy's kite.
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Ammunition.
Utterly senseless, and out of the course of nature, are numerous Maori beliefs--nay, the word is not strong enough, as only conveying the idea of trust arising from evidence, whereas, with Maories, many early imbibed convictions are certainties--a state of mind difficult to understand, but almost universal with savage peoples, and common enough in Europe amongst the bigoted and ignorant.
Knowledge is said to be power; it is also doubt, and often refutation, but never certainty.
I also told my pair of aborigines of railways, telegraphs, sun pictures, balloons, and weaving, of the making of grog and gunpowder. The two latter arts were greatly the most interesting, as the possession of these luxuries were much coveted by the natives, and their private manufacture appeared to them possible.
A wise government, at the time of which I write, prohibited the sale to the Maori of both these means of extinction, and even Europeans had to obtain a magistrate's order before they could purchase powder, shot, or copper caps, and then only a small quantity at a time. This was such a bother and loss of time that I frequently made my own ammunition, and strange as some may think it, I had most difficulty with the manufacture of shot.
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I set about making gunpowder in the following manner: I bought several pounds' weight of both sulphur and saltpetre; to the latter I added a little warm water, and skimmed the floating dirt away. For charcoal I selected a white wood, having a grain and appearance like elder, splitting up portions into pieces a finger's size, and nine inches long; these I neatly piled in a camp oven, and making up a fire under and over, in the course of an hour they became perfect charcoal pencils.
After pounding the charcoal fine, I weighed as under:
Sulphur 4 ounces.
Saltpetre 24 "
Charcoal 4 "
After first stirring together, and drying the three constituents roughly on a dish, I passed the lot two or three times through a coffee-mill, so as intimately to mix all together. I then made the whole into a black mud pie on the dish by adding a little water and a minute proportion of gum. This mess I spread out thin over the dish with a butcher's knife, and after scoring it across and across, and so forming it into little cubes, I set it to dry in the hot sun.
I may remark with regard to the strength of this
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A sweet keepsake.
powder that its limit of killing power being thirty yards, it did not make a crack, or report, equal to ordinary gunpowder. However, it answered the purpose very well for shooting wild pigeons, and now and then, although very rarely, a duck, when I chanced to get a near shot; and as to the former stupid birds, why the worst shot that ever squinted along a gun could hardly fail to knock them over. A substitute for new copper caps was easily found by saving those expended, and making them serve again and again, with a fresh charge of detonating matter taken from the head of a wax "vesta" match.
But I never succeeded to my own satisfaction as a maker of Shot, they would never "come" round, but were all sorts of funny shapes, only anything but globular.
But to return to the boat in which the two natives and myself are lazily reclining. The wind is fair, though light, and we go dodging on our course across the Frith of Thames to our home up the river.
Pita, which is the Maori way of writing Peter, and myself had great fun chaffing Mamahu, who, it leaked out, had a sweetheart, a fiancee, at present residing with her tribe at Oraki Bay, near Auckland.
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As a kind of keepsake, he wore, day and night, a certain under garment, formerly appertaining to that young lady's costume. A glorious tongue is the Maori for chaff, it is a language of which it may be said that you can open your mouth and let it say what it likes.
Natives feel "no call" to suit their conversation to those present, and say things before women and children that would sound very shocking if rendered into English. Words whose synonyms in English would be highly improper to use, are nowise startling to listen to in the native Maori, and, indeed, sound "all right,"
Monday.--Arrived at the mill; all the men glad to see me, and many inquiries for grog; not believed when I say I have none.
I will now leave my Diary, and briefly as I can relate, how Seth Fearnley and myself worked our gold-mine.
As often as possible I paid him a visit at his hut at the Golden Falls, taking him each time small parcels of such things as he required, and bringing back on my return very much gold in the form of rich specimens. He also, sometimes, came down at night quite close to the mill, when I would meet
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A flutter wheel.
him, and when we could talk over our affairs without the danger of interruption.
We were four weeks from the time of my return from town with the ironwork before our primitive crushing machine was completed. As Seth had nearly all the work to do by himself, and often with tools ill adapted to the operation he had in hand, it had taken more time to construct than we had anticipated.
For the prime mover of our machine we made a "flutter" wheel.
At a convenient place, about ten feet from the fall, and may be twelve below the level of the stream above, we laid and fixed two heavy spars, on which we built the bearings of the flutter wheel. The wheel itself was made out of a piece of timber ten feet long by one foot in diameter. First, driving on a ring and a gudgeon into each end--the same before-mentioned in my list of ironwork--and nicely hewing the shaft round and true, into which we then mortised holes, and drove in spokes or arms, standing out eight inches, to which we fixed boards--there were six of them--the floats or buckets of the water-wheel. These boards were only five feet long, the other end of the shaft of the wheel being devoted to two "cams." The water was led in a
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shoot or flume directly over, and guided in a box with its lower opening, measuring five feet by two inches on to the near side of the wheel, on which it fell, bodily, a height of ten feet, causing the wheel to make fifty revolutions in the minute. At the end of the wheel-shaft, and where the cams were, and directly below them, was fixed on end a log five feet long by three feet diameter, one foot of its length being let into the rock, so making it stand steady and secure. In the upper end of this log was bored and chiselled out a perpendicular hole six inches in diameter, and two feet nine inches deep, and near the bottom of this was cut, as it were, a window, six inches square. The cheese-shaped casting before-mentioned was put in the bottom, and the side mortise, or window, closed in with finely-perforated sheet-iron, 150 to the square inch. The stamper was ten feet long, and kept in its proper and perpendicular position by wooden slides; a strong tooth of hard wood stood out from the stamper, and the whole was so arranged that on the flutter wheel being set in motion, the cams in the wheel-shaft acting against this tooth, lifted the stamper sixteen inches, and let it drop twice upon every revolution of the water-wheel.
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How to save gold.
The piece of wrought-iron, before mentioned, as like a very big tack, formed the stamper-head.
Leading from below the opening or window of the stamper-box, we made a shoot with ripples, and a copper plate. The former intended to catch such stray particles of gold, amalgam, or quicksilver, as might escape from the stamper-box, and preparing the latter for a like purpose, by cleaning off with nitric acid, and immediately silvering, by pouring on a small quantity of quicksilver.
Putting some quicksilver and a handful or two of specimens, the size of road metal, into the stamper-box, and turning in also a fine stream of water, we start the machine-dash, stump, crunch, bang, dirty water squirts through the holes in the perforated sheet-iron, runs down the shoot, over the ripples, over the newly-silvered copper plate, over a piece of blanket, and away.
We lost much fine gold, no doubt, but we saved enough to satisfy ourselves.
After one day's work with the machine, or when all the quicksilver Seth possessed had become thickened by amalgamation, he would "clean up,"--a process much the same with our little toy of an affair as it is with the great quartz-crushing mills of
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California or Australia, that is, collecting the quicksilver, more or less in the form of amalgam. This is poured a pound's weight or two at a time on to a chamois leather, placed over a basin or dish, where it may bag down conveniently for receiving this ponderous fluid; then dexterously gathering in together the corners and edges of the "chamois," and tightly squeezing, and wringing the leather until every particle of "liquid silver" is forced through the pores and falls into the dish below, the amalgam remains semi-solid behind, perhaps, as big as a duck's egg, or may be, if your claim is a "duffer," only the size of a pea, or less. At any rate, when retorted, about one-fifth of the amalgam will be gold, which desideratum is attained by placing the amalgam in a cast-iron retort, luted with clay, around which a roaring fire is made, whilst a pipe leading from out the retort, and having a convenient length and bend, has its outlet immersed in a bucket of water, where the mercurial fumes condense and the gold remains, not very pure, but marketable.
In this form, from time to time, I received much gold from Seth, when I would, as I had opportunity or leisure, farther improve its appearance and quality, by melting in a crucible. This I managed at my
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Melting gold.
forge at the mill. Having always ironwork connected with the machinery on hand for repair, I was enabled to remain at work by myself ever so late at night without causing surprise to any of my men.
Gold is hard to melt, nearly as hard as iron, and consequently requires a heat equal to 1300 deg. Fah. before it will run. My method was as follows:
I lifted, with a pair of tongs made on purpose, a small crucible, in which I had placed some gold, together with a little borax as a flux, on a strong and clean fire. Then covering the mouth of my melting-pot with a piece of old saw plate, I further heaped the fire around, and steadily worked the bellows, occasionally peeping through the glare into the crucible, when presently in about fifteen minutes, the gold would be melted. Then quickly lifting the crucible with my tongs from off the fire, and tipping its contents into ready prepared moulds of dry clay, the metal, when cold, assumed the form of shapely little triangular bars. Seth never worked the machine when the wind would have carried the thump of the stamper in the direction of the mill, or of the native settlements, or even on a still day when the noise might have been heard by some wandering native gum digger. Indeed, he always chose bois-
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terous weather, or when the wind was strong from the west, to set the stamper a-going; and, at any rate, had he been ever so indifferent to discovery, he could not have quarried out, and prepared stone enough for the machine, had his time been occupied with crushing daily.
Our reef, or leader, measuring only four inches in thickness, a drive for a considerable distance following the course of the gold-bearing quartz had to be quarried out, and through excessively hard rock, before much stone could be got ready for the machine.
We had many a talk together about our property--how to convert our little triangular pale yellow bars into coin of the realm?
