In building our cradles, or “gold canoes,”
as the Indians called them, we found that to mortice
the planks into each other was a feat of carpentering
far above our skill, particularly as we had no mortice
chisels. We were therefore obliged to adopt the
ruder experiment of making the boards overlap each
other by about an inch, nailing them firmly together
in that position. As, however, the inequality
of surface at the bottom of the cradle, produced by
the mode of building, would have materially impeded
our operations, we strained some pieces of tarred
canvas, which we fortunately possessed amongst our
tent cloths, over the bottoms, thus rendering the
surface even, and suited to our purpose. By the
time we had got so far with our undertaking, we fell
sufficiently tired to give over work for the night.
We had laboured unceasingly at them, pausing only
to swallow a hasty meal, and stuck by our hammers
and chisels till dusk. We were up early the next
morning, and toiled away to get the cradles completed,
as we were constantly seeing proofs of the great advantages
of these machines. We fixed a wicker sieve over
the head, by means of a couple of transverse bars,
and then set about to construct the working Apparatus,
which we had all along feared would put our mechanical
skill to rather a severe test; but we found it easier
than we had anticipated, and before sundown the rockers
were fixed on both cradles, which, to all intents
and purposes, were now ready for use. The work
was rather rough, but it was firm and strong.
So fearful were we first of all that our cradles might
be removed or tampered with in the night, that I jocularly
proposed two of us should give up the shelter of the
tent, and, like pretty little children, sleep in our
cradles till the morning.
The next day we set to work with them with the utmost
eagerness, having first dragged the lumbering machines
to a likely spot in the vicinity of the water.
The labour was hard enough, but nothing compared to
the old plan of pot-washing, while it saved the hands
from the injury inflicted by continual dabbling in
sand and water. We took the different departments
of labour by turns, and found that the change, by
bringing into play different sets of muscles, greatly
relieved us, and enabled us to keep the stones rolling
with great energy. In the evening, with the help
of our newly purchased scales, we tested our gains.
The cradle which was worked by Don Luis, Malcolm, and
myself, for it was so near the water that three hands
were sufficient, had realised six ounces of gold dust;
the other, attended to by Bradley, McPhail, Biggs,
and Lacosse, had nearly as much. During the day
there was another considerable influx of people to
the diggings; the banks of the river are therefore
getting more and more crowded, and we hear that the
price of every article of subsistence is rising in
the same proportion.
