INTERIOR OF AFRICA. 30I 
that very few of them had resolution to persevere ; and the few 
that did, had but very indifferent success ; which indeed, is not 
much to be wondered at ; for instead of opening some untried 
place, they continued to dig and wash in the same spot where 
they had dug and washed for years ; and where, of course, but 
few large grains could be left. 
The washing the sands of the streams, is by far the easiest 
way of obtaining the gold-dust; but in most places the sands 
have been so narrowlv searched before, that unless the stream 
takes some new course, the gold is found but in small quan- 
tities. While some of the party are busied in washing the 
sands, others employ themselves farther up the torrent, where 
the rapidity of the stream has carried away all the clay, sand, 
&c. and left nothing but small pebbles. The search among 
these is a very troublesome task. I have seen women who 
have had the skin worn off" the tops of their fingers in this 
employment. Sometimes, however, they are rewarded by 
finding pieces of gold, which they call sanoo birro, gold 
" stones,'' that amply repay them for their trouble. A woman 
and her daughter, inhabitants of Kamalia, found in one day 
two pieces of this kind ; one of five drachms, and the other of 
three drachms weight. But the most certain and profitable 
mode of washing, is practised in the height of the dry season, 
by digging a deep pit, like a draw-well, near some hill which 
has previously been discovered to contain gold. The pit is dug 
with small spades or corn paddles, and the earth is drawn up 
in large calabashes. As the Negroes dig through the different 
strata of clay or sand, a calabash or two of each is washed, by 
