until at last the water was got
under by the steam-pumps, and they were reached. Two had died of sheer
privation, and the rest were got out more dead than alive.

The poor Chinamen's gardens down by the creek, under Gibraltar, had
also suffered severely by the flood. MacCullum's Creek, in ordinary
seasons, is only a tiny stream, consisting of water-holes
communicating with each other by a brook. But during a flood it
becomes converted into a raging torrent, and you can hear its roar a
mile off. Within about five hours the water in it had risen not less
than twenty feet! This will give you an idea of the tremendous force
and rapidity of the rainfall in this country. Of course the damage
done was great, in MacCullum's as in Deep Creek. A heavy timber bridge
had been carried quite away, not a trace of it remaining. Many miners'
huts in the low ground had been washed away; while others, situated in
more sheltered places, out of the rush of the torrent, had been quite
submerged, the occupants saving themselves by hasty flight in the
early morning; some of them having been only wakened up by the water
coming into their beds.

One eccentric character, a Scotchman, who determined to stick to his
domicile, took refuge on his parlour table as the water was rising.
Then, as it got still higher, he placed a chair upon the table, and
stood up on it, the water continuing to rise, over his legs, then up
and up; yet still he stuck to his chair. His only regret, he
afterwards said, was that he could not get at his whisky bottle, which
he discerned upon a high shelf temptingly opposite him, but beyond his
reach. The water at last began to fall; he waded up to his neck for
the bottle; and soon the water was out of the house; for its fall is
almost as sudden as its rise.

I was sorry for the poor Chinamen, whom I found, two days later, still
wandering about amidst the ruins of their gardens. Their loamy beds
had been quite washed away, and their fences and some of their huts
carried clean down the creek. One of them told me he had lost 30_l._
in notes, which he had concealed in his cabin; but the flood had risen
so quickly that he had been unable to save it. I picked up a
considerable-sized stone that had been washed on to the Chinamen's
ground; it was a piece of lava thrown from one of the volcanic hills
which bound the plain,--how many thousands of years ago! These
volcanic stones are so light and porous that they swim like corks, an