AMERICAN NOTES 301 



hideous and horrid buzzing things surround our lamp, and a 

 whip-poor-will commences with unceasing regularity to repeat 

 his maddening strain in our immediate vicinity. ... A terrible 

 bird is the whip-poor-will ; let us be thankful we in England 

 know him not. 



I learned enough about gold-mining in that fortnight 

 to understand that it is no game for amateurs. Thus, 

 although I learned how to pan ore and never failed to 

 get a good show of gold in this way, sometimes enough 

 to string right round the pan, yet when that same class of 

 quartz was milled and washed over the plates never a 

 trace of gold did it leave behind. This, I suppose, was 

 the fault of the reduction officer, who was a mere boy 

 fresh from college, but I soon saw that between the exist- 

 ence of gold in quartz and the extracting it in large 

 quantities there is a vast deal of piactical knowledge 

 wanted, and I repaired to New York again to see racing 

 and horses, which I did understand. 



Before going to New York I had left the racing columns 

 of St Stephen's Review to Lord Marcus Beresford, who 

 most kindly took charge, and no man has ever written 

 better stuff than he used to do as can well be imagined. 

 More than that, we arranged then that we should start 

 the International Horse Agency and Exchange, and I 

 took out a big list of mares, most of which were Hume- 

 Webster's, to offer to American breeders. The business 

 did not come to anything at that time, and Loid Marcus 

 later on went his way and I mine, but there was never 

 any divergence of opinion. Only the first effort fell flat, 

 and did not seem worth following up. 



Bread cast upon the waters, however, is found after 

 many days, and it was during that visit to America in 

 1887 that I first met Mr James R. Keene, who was 

 temporarily down on his luck from some Wall Street 

 disasters. I had been to a Brooklyn meeting, and in St 

 Stephen's of 30th July 1887, I wrote : 



The big race, the Brookdale Handicap, was the important 

 one of the day, and at last I saw what I at once took to be a real 



