ho has found a big nugget and
made a fortune, but nothing of the thousands who don't find any big
nuggets, and earn but bare wages or often less.

On most diggings a large proportion of the men are working for wages
only, and it not infrequently depends on the fortune of the employer
whether the labourer receives his wages or not. It may be a case of
general smash. We saw much of this on the Lindis diggings. They were not
a general success at that time, as we soon discovered to our cost; and
many who went there wildly hoping to find gold for the picking up, and
with no means to withstand a reverse, were only too glad to work for
those who had means to carry on for a while, for their food only.

We procured a long Tom, and spent some days prospecting with variable
success--_i.e._, we found gold nearly everywhere, each shovelful of
earth contained gold, but in quantities so generally infinitesimal as to
be not worth the time spent in working for it. The land was impregnated
with gold, but the difficulty was to find it in sufficient quantity to
pay.

We at length fixed upon a claim and set up our gear. From daylight to
dark we worked day after day, excavating, cradling, and washing, each
one taking it in turns to look after the horses and tent and fetch food
from the camp, which was at some distance away. The final washing of the
stuff was done twice daily, at noon and again at evening, and what an
exciting and anxious operation this was! How earnestly the decreasing
sediment was peered at to discover signs of the precious metal! How our
hearts would jump with delight when a bright yellow grain was
discovered, appearing for a moment on the dark surface, then more
careful washing, with beating hearts and necks craning over the fateful
dish as the mass got less and less, and then the sinking and
disappointment to find that the day's hard work of four men did not
bring us five shillings worth of gold! But hope, with the young and
sanguine, is hard to beat, and the following morning would see us at
work as cheerily as ever.

[Illustration: THE GOLD DIGGINGS.]

A fortnight after our arrival our provisions ran short, and we were
obliged to have recourse to the stores, of which two had been started by
an enterprising firm in Dunedin, and soon after we were nearly having a
famine, owing to the stores themselves running short by reason of the
drays conveying supplies having been snowed up in crossing the pass.
McLean was appl