Tour of the Gold-fields 215 



tered about looking for the best points at which 

 to take views of this most beautiful part of the 

 country. Situated, by comparison, in a basin, and 

 straggling up and down the creek are here situated 

 Wood's diggings, Jamestown and Yorktown. The 

 soil looks poor, and the rock is granite and sand- 

 stone with some slate. On the high points and 

 peaks of ''Table Mountain" huge masses of con- 

 glomerate boulders, two feet and more in diameter, 

 are scattered everywhere, and give a dreary look 

 to all the north side of Wood's diggings. The 

 hill to the west has shot up into beautiful obelisks 

 of quartz, and you only cease to admire it to be in 

 raptures over the views seen by turning east, to 

 look over mountain beyond mountain, snowy peaks 

 bare of trees, and between them the rounded points 

 of hills, looking tiny by comparison. To the 

 south, bold, rounded but high mountains, full of 

 verdure and with most graceful outlines, enchant 

 you, while the verdant stretches at the foot of these 

 mountains have a pastoral air which made us think 

 of home. 



March 2Jth. My day passed in a vain attempt 

 to transfer to canvas the scene before our tent; 

 when I had worked some hours I went into the 

 tent next to ours, where lies a poor man, ill, pale, 

 dejected, unable to move even a few steps. His 

 mud roof leaks, the soil forming the side of his 

 cabin is so porous that it admits such quantities of 



