92 TlMEHRI. 
50 yards, so that our camp may get a little sunlight and 
be out of danger from falling trees. A fire-place and 
kitchen, a la Hindu, are rigged up, and we prepare to 
work. One of the hands is a carpenter, and he proceeds 
to make our torn, the machine generally used in this 
colony for gold washing. Everything being prepared, we 
at last begin a6lual operations. 
Generally an overseer, or clerk in a dry-goods store, 
or other person of that ilk, is sent up as manager. 
Now this manager, possibly, has never seen gold ex- 
cept in the form of jewellery or sovereigns, and he 
imagines that it is the easiest thing in the world to 
watch the prospeftor or the foreman. The foreman 
never pays his employer in kind, and there have been 
numerous instances where the trip has cost 1,000 per 
cent, more in outlay than in revenue. The easiest way 
for him is to barter his provisions with his more success- 
ful neighbour, for gold ; he then hies to town with a 
couple of pounds of gold, and is sent up again as a good 
man. 
The manager watches and directs the labourers ; the 
foreman watches the manager. A nugget of some value 
is thrown up in the pay-dirt, and the foreman picks it 
out and throws it away as a bit of " rockstone" ; the 
manager looks at it and only sees what he thinks is rock» 
never dreaming for an instant that it is a nugget. 
The foreman picks it up after the day's work and laughs 
at the manager's credulity. Again, he washes the 
battel, and looks the manager steadily in the face and 
tilts his battel over. The amalgam runs out and lodges 
in the shallow creek, and the foreman hoists his battel 
and shows no return. Next morning, or perhaps the 
