On the 12th of June, in the dusk of the evening, they reached the summit of a hill overlooking their destination. The Summerhill Creek lay before them, with the camp-fires of fifty or sixty huts; and as they descended into the midst, the inhabitants of this village of the desert were returning from work with laughter and rude merriment. After pitching their camp, and taking some refreshment, they proceeded anxiously to inquire the news; and that night they turned in with no very bright anticipations, after learning that the creek was high and goods low, the weather alternating between rain and frost, the mines overcrowded, and superfluous hands deserting them fast. They struggled for awhile against these evil auguries; they even contrived, with great labour, to pick up an ounce or two of gold; but at length, losing heart, the party broke up on the 23d, and all went home but our adventurer.
His geological and mechanical knowledge enabled him to obtain a partnership with another band of gold-hunters then at work; and after spending some days in prospecting on account of the new concern, he found 'a chink he liked the look of,' which appeared to have been partially worked. Licences were accordingly taken out, the commissioner being on the spot, and forty-five feet of frontage to the creek were marked off. As soon as the river became a little lower, they began in earnest to dig a race for turning the course of the water. Their pump was made and fixed ready to drain; a dam was emptied; six ounces of gold were obtained as an earnest of what they might expect; and then it began to rain, and the creek to roar, and the whole of their machinery was swept away.
Here was a new mishap: but these things will happen in the diggings; and so our adventurers, agreeing to pay the commissioner a monthly licence for their ground, intending to return in the dry weather to work it, removed bag and baggage to another part of the river. Here they dug away, but it appears with no tempting success; and they took care to return to the commissioner in time, as they thought, to implement their monthly bargain. On tendering the money for their licence, however, they discovered that they were just half an hour too late, and that the functionary had disposed of their forty-five feet to another bidder. What to do now? They fell in with a man, an old friend of Mr Rutter, just setting off on a journey of sixty-two miles to the north, where he told them a piece of gold had been found weighing 106 lbs. This invaluable man they instantly took into partnership, and purchasing fresh horses, they struck their camp, and followed their new companion across the country, in search of a place called the Devil's Hole, near the World's End. It is no wonder they lost their way. As there was no such thing as a road, they were obliged to transport their goods on the horses' backs; and the interesting nature of their journey may be guessed at from the fact, that they had to cross a creek with steep banks sixteen times in the course of five miles.
They at length reached the Louisa Diggings, near those quartz-ridges where, in fact, a 106 lb. lump of gold had been found. They encamped in the dark; and getting up betimes the next morning, looked eagerly out on
this land of promise. It was a dull, dreary morning, and a heavy continuous rain plashed upon the earth. About 200 persons were taking the air in this watery atmosphere, their dress and movements corresponding well with the aspect of the hour. Some were covered with an old sack, some with a blanket, some with a dripping cloak, but all glided slowly about in the rain, with a stick in their hands, and their eyes fixed upon the ground. These phantoms were gold-hunters; and the silent company was immediately joined by our adventurers, who glided and poked like the rest. The ground was new, and during two days gold was obtained in this way, from a particle the size of a pin's head to a lump of nearly an ounce. When the surface was exhausted, digging commenced; but the soil was too tough for the common cradle, and although rich in gold, it would not repay the trouble of washing. Upon this, the company broke up, each pursuing his own way; and our adventurer and another agreed to go down the country together to Maitland, prospecting on the way.
The place where the large mass of gold was found is an intersection between two quartz-ridges, rising from a high table-land in the midst of a congeries of mountains, offshoots from the range that extends from Wilson's Point, on the south, to Cape York, on the north. The clay soil covers many acres below and around the ridges, and wherever it was prospected by our adventurer, gold was found. On the 12th of September, he reached Maitland; and here he found a letter awaiting him, which determined him to choose a new hunting-ground. Some years before, it seems, a man he knew, who was at that time a shepherd in the Wellington District, while crossing the country on his master's business, lost his way in the gullies, and did not find it again for two days. While sitting down, in his dilemma, on a quartz-rock, he observed something glittering beside him, and breaking off with his tomahawk a piece of the stone, he carried it home with him as a curiosity. At home it lay for years, till the reported discoveries of gold induced him to offer it for sale to a goldsmith in Sydney. The result was, that he connected himself with a party of adventurers, and they all set forth for the place where he had rested among the gullies. His companions proved treacherous; and when they had come sufficiently near to be able, as they thought, to find the spot without his assistance, they turned him adrift. They sought the golden rock for three daysbut in vain; and he went back to Sydney, to invite Mr Rutter to accompany him. Here ends our narrative for the present; and a most instructive one it is. The search for gold, our informant tells us plainly, is a mere lottery, its results depending almost wholly upon chance. Plenty as the metal is, it frequently costs twenty shillings the sovereign's worth; and, in short, we are at that point of transition when the mania is dying away, and the science has not begun. When capital and skill are brought to bear upon the process of mining in Australia, it will become a regular, though by no means a miraculously profitable business; and even at present, steady labouring-men may spread themselves over thousands of miles of the auriferous creeks, if they will be satisfied with a profit of seven or eight shillings a day.