village?--Oh, it is so small and hidden away that he does
not deem it worth his while to go to you, and then, besides, the three
hundred who are wanted have announced their intention to go, for who
would remain here and tiresomely drag out existence with the niggardly
sums to be made from fishing when elsewhere the gold lies in such heaps
that one can pick up whole bags full in a few days?"

"How? What? For heaven's sake!--sacks full of gold in a few days?"
cried Lihoa, who, like all Chinamen, was covetous of great wealth.
"Speak, Lohe, tell us, can we get some of the gold,--at least a handful
or two? It is just as you say, our village is the last and the very
least in the world, and not a soul has come to us with the good news.
Tell us the road to fortune."

The agent Lohe, who for each able-bodied Chinaman whom he secured,
received a hundred sapecks, agreed to tell Lihoa the road for the
reason that he was "his cousin and was glad to do him a little
service". He pictured to him a land, bearing the barbaric name
Australia, which the "devils from the West" had discovered many days'
journey away beyond the islands to the south, where the gold lay in the
fields like the stones on the island of Hongkong, and where great
nuggets, as large as a man's head, were to be had. This Goldland "the
devils from the West" wanted for themselves, but the priest of the God,
in whose cell he had just been, said that this gold could be taken away
only by the sons of the Celestial Kingdom, that the treasures of this
land belonged to the Chinese, and not to the barbarians of the West.
The sly discoverers of the Goldland had come to get the Chinese to
bring these lumps of gold to their ships, where the men from the West
and the sons of the Celestial Kingdom would divide the spoils. The
rich Natse was out in search of three hundred men to bring this gold
from the distant land to the south. Of course, each one of the three
hundred fortunate enough to go would receive his own weight in gold,
and for him and his entire family there would be a life of wealth and
honor on his return home.

Thus Lohe explained the situation.

"More than a hundred pounds of gold, and wealth and honor," repeated
Lihoa, on whom the story of the gold which the God had said was to be
given to the Chinese and not to the hated barbarians from the West, had
made a deep impression.

"Have you heard it, my people? We can all become as rich as rich
Natse, and eve