"Not at all,"
said he,"my mate takes his turn. He's down now."
Hooked round, and sure enough old wooden-leg was invisible, whilst the sound of his pick could be heard rising from the depths below. The mode of descent into these holes is by footholes cut in the side of the shaft at convenient intervals, the rope never being made use of for descent at such small depths. I asked how his mate got down with his wooden leg."Oh,"
was the answer,"he can manage with that better than with his good leg, for he can shove the stick in anywhere and hold on."
I could not help taking a look at old timber-toe as he pegged away down below, though he was scarcely visible at that depth, whilst I smiled at the novel advantage of a wooden leg thus pointed out to me. The ridges all the way up the Oakey Creek are intersected by numerous quartz veins, many of which have been slightly opened, but only at the surface. Here and there, too, on the flats bordering the creek are marks of prospecting, but no holes appear to have been sunk to any depth. After following the creek up for about ' seven miles, the road mounts some short stiff stony ridges, and at last cornea upon what at Burrendong is called the Big Hill; and at Louisa, the Burrendong Hill. Dismounting, I led my horse up it, and never did I , get such a drilling as in mounting that hill. It consists of a series of sharp acclivities, some seven or eight in number, with lesser ascents dividing them; and as each is approached, the wearied traveller fancies that must be the last, for from the steep rises nothing above the crest of the acclivity can be seen. I had to 'halt and take wind three or four times before I reached the summit, and thought, as ascent succeeded ascent, that there was no top at all to it. It is calculated that the road from the top to the bottom of the hill is a mile and a quarter in length. I passed a bullock team toiling up the first rise, with half a load, the other half having been previously taken up and deposited at the summit. This unfortunate team had had a capsize on the previous day in the Oakey Creek, at a place where the bank is some thirty feet deep. In descending where the road crosses the creek they had gone too near the edge of the track, and the earth giving way, dray and road rolled over into the creek, dragging with them the eight bullocks yoked to them. None of the bullocks were killed, but two or three horns were lost and some bruises inflicted; whilst of course the patience of the teamsters was tried, and her Majesty's English suffered accordingly. I heard of this accident from having remarked track of blood all along the road, for which, however, the hornless and still bleeding animals fully accounted, though it led me to enquire into the primary cause of the mischief. The path of the poor animals was marked with blood, whilst their bones must have been still aching from the rude fall of the day before; but there they were, toiling up that stupendous mountain, gaining some ten or twelve yards every five minutes, goaded on to exertion only by the lash or the stick of their drivers. After reaching the crest of the hill, the road runs for a mile or more along the top of the range, from which at various points a beautiful view is gained of the valley of the Macquarie. Long lines of mountains stretch away on cither hand until they become blue and indistinct in the distance, or are joined by other ranges of hills running to the right tot left till lost behind some ridge more lofty than its follows. The only variety, however, is that of hill and valley, for everywhere far as the eye can reach, nothing but bush is perceptible. No hut, no tent can be discerned, though in the far distance, a rising smoke at the base of a line of hills in the back- ground gave evidence of a digger's camp, the only sign of life there visible. Crossing a few broken ridges, the road descends by some narrow gullies, all , more or less worked, though now deserted, some of them only very recently, into a beautiful green creek. The flats on the banks of this stream were covered with handsome wattles, then in flower, and emitting delightful scent. Along this the track passes until it reaches a sheep station of Dr. Kerr's, called Black willow. From this it proceeds with little variation along narrow grassy gullies, bounded by low ranges of iron and stringy bark, all more or less covered with broken quartz, until it comes suddenly upon a well worked creek, on which some twenty or thirty Chinamen were then .employed on the old stuff; and rising a long sweeping hill, brings the traveller on to the Louisa, after a journey of about 28 miles from Burrendong."Why you don't suppose that the men employed were such fools as to talk about it when they came across a nugget?"
This opened my eyes at once to the system that had gone on. Further I was told that most of the Company's men could afford to spend in a night as much money as they earned by wages in a-week;"besides"
said my informant,"what was the reason that one or other of the men always had to go back at night to where he had been working, to fetch a pick or a handkerchief, or something else he had left there? You may depend, sir, that if the overseers had looked into the rubbish thrown aside, they would have found more nuggets than ever went into the washing pan."
This was from a man who had been upon the ground whilst the Company worked there, and who had even taken employment under them, but left when he saw what was going on, for fear, as he said, of getting mixed-up in what might get him into trouble. The fact is, that the Company were robbed right and left; those in charge of the works not being wide enough awake for the sharp gentry they had employed under them. I may here remark that no company working either ground or quartz veins ever will answer. They never have done so, because the chances are too much against them. Even in slave countries, where the closest supervision can be exercised, it is notorious that the labourers do at times deceive their employers. It must then be much more the case, when the men employed are free and Englishmen, and when any portion of the precautions used in other parts would, if attempted here, create a popular outcry that would he sufficient to annihilate a company however powerful or wealthy. Experience on all the gold mines, here and in California, has shown that no labour could be remuneratively employed that could not be most accurately and most certainly supervised. Thus, in California and in Victoria, the operations of companies on the gold-fields are confined to what may be considered as their more legitimate channel, -- not interfering with the labour of the individual miner, but, on the contrary, aiding it. There, the company erects the quartz-crushing machine, leaving it to the digger, or rather miner, to supply the article for which their machinery is to be set in motion. The quartz is crushed for the miner at a regular charge of so much per ton ¡ the owner of the quartz being in attendance during all the necessary processes, to watch that justice be done him. Whatever gold is procured is his property, the proprietors of the works being sufficiently and surely remunerated by the charge they make. Each in this way assists the other, whilst there is no inducement to peculation, whore it is most easily effected -- in working the vein -- since every large nugget comes into the hands of the miner; and on the other hand, the gold thus procured being mostly exceedingly fine, and only to be taken up by amalgamation with quicksilver, dishonesty on the part of the servants of the company is also to a very great extent prevented. This is the only system of working the quartz veins of this country that ever will pay ; and in going beyond this, all the gold raining companies that have been formed, have laid from the very first the foundation for the failure that they have experienced. I have given this opinion somewhat more authoritatively than perhaps, as an individual, I may be considered entitled to do, but I give it after long experience of the subject, and after watching from the very first opening of the gold-fields this particular phase of the question. Company after company have I seen rise and fall, elsewhere as well as here, owing their failure solely to the fact, that they attempted too much. As this became obvious, the course now followed became gradually to be adopted, the companies restricting their operations to doing that which could be done only by a company, whilst to the miner was left the risk or profit of doing that which, though it might enrich the individual, had invariably proved the source of loss to the company. The Great Nugget Vein Company commenced to work their vein on a most extensive scale. They sank down to the face of the reef to a depth of 80 or 90 feet, cutting away the earth at one end of the trench, in a long though steep gradient, up which trucks running on a tramway and laden with the quartz procured below were drawn by the steam engines at work in the adjoining buildings. The deep abyss thus opened for a length of some fifty or sixty yards still remains, though pools of water have gathered in some places, whilst here and there the shores that uphold many of the overhanging masses of rock or earth have slipped or given way, precipitating rocks, stones, and gravel into the depths below, and so choking the trench as to make it difficult and dangerous to work, should any be so inclined. The appearance of the whole is so precarious and unstable, that I, not generally very nervous, could not induce myself to trust my precious person below, although I had a great desire to inspect the various strata of rocks. You will doubtless imagine that I am dealing too much with times gone bye, but tales of these are nearly all that is left to tell, so far as Louisa Creek is concerned. There may be a population of about 350 on the creek, retained, no doubt, by the comfortable dwellings that have been erected, as the greater part of the miners are married men, who have some consideration for their wives and children, and feel disinclined to lodge them in tents during the piercing cold of the present season. Of this number about 150 are diggers, 100 being employed upon the creek itself, and the others in the gullies of the adjoining ranges. The yield of gold is not very great, having fallen off palpably within the last few weeks: and from all I could gather from conversation with very many persons, the average weekly amount raised barely reaches half-an ounce per man. The discontent was rising to its height whilst I was here, and there was some fear expressed that the creek would be deserted. Several meetings were held on the subject, and it was proposed to send out prospecting parties, supported by subscriptions, to open new ground. There seemed to be a great difference of opinion amongst the population on this subject; but, ultimately, it was resolved to offer a reward of £30 for the discovery of a gold-field on the table land, anywhere within a distance of ten miles of the Louisa. The sinking here has all been shallow, never to a greater depth than twenty-five feet, whilst the usual run of holes ranged at about fourteen feet. Many men are at work washing over the old stuff m the worked ground, making wages, and sometimes something more when they come upon spots where their predecessors had only half gone down, when they left it for some new rush of those days. The great rush to the Louisa occurred when the Great Nugget Vein Company threw up their right to the section of ground that they had secured under the old mining regulations. Within a week after their claim had been given up, about 2000 persons had assembled, and the number was nearly doubled within the following month. As the ground got worked over, party after party left for newer and more promising spots, whilst many, who would have remained, were compelled to quit by the high price of provisions ; the very difficult nature of the roads on every side up to the high table land of the Louisa makes a difference of 5s. per cwt. in carriage, and consequently by this as well as by the additional time consumed on the road, renders provisions so much the more costly.