worth more. I knew nothing whatever about gold-mining, and,
not having performed any manual labor for some time, my hands were
soft. Every new chum had to undergo the purgatorial experience of
having his palms blistered and re-blistered until continued contact
with the handles of pick and shovel made them horny. However, I soon
matriculated at the sluice-box, and was able to do a fair day's work.
Then, as my friends could not afford to pay wages they were, for the
time, off the "lead," I sought another employer. Work was easily found.
The uniform rate of wages for Europeans was an ounce of gold per week,
the value thereof being about 3 12s. 6d.

With my first earnings I bought some double width unbleached calico and
a palm and needle. By means of these I made myself a small tent. The
cost of the material was about seventeen shillings, and the work was
easily finished in the course of four or five evenings. I had not been
living in this tent for more than ten days when a man, who was about to
start on a prospecting trip, bought it over my head for 1pound 15s. I
must have made, and sold at a profit, quite a dozen tents during my
stay at Pilgrim's Rest. In fact I soon got to be known as "that chap
who always has a tent to sell." When a purchaser came along I would
deliver the tent at once, and move my few belongings to the dwelling of
some friend or another who happened to have room to spare.

I lived very sparingly indeed; two shillings per diem paid for my food
and tobacco. I hoarded every penny like a miser. I longed to prospect,
to explore; but before attempting this it was necessary to have a few
pounds in hand. On Sundays it was my habit to walk to the top of the
"Divide," the backbone of the mountain range. On one side of it lay
Pilgrim's Rest, on the other "Mac Mac," another mining camp so called
on account of most of the diggers there in the first instance having
been Scotsmen. From this lofty coign I could occasionally get far and
faint glimpses of the mysterious "Low Country," which was just visible
(in clear weather) over the intervening precipice-edged plateau which
lay beyond the Mac Mac and Waterfall Creeks.

Sixty miles away to the north-east, but clearly visible in the rarefied
mountain air, towered the mighty gates through which the Olifant River
roared down to meet the Letaba. On their left the great ranges rolled
away to the infinite north-west. What direction first to explore in?
That was a difficult