Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 22, 2025
I calculated that my income of 120l. a year would scarcely suffice to keep a wife, and I decided to renounce my dream of love. I went to pay a farewell visit to my young lady, but found that she was locked up, so away I went and soon forgot all about it. Shortly afterwards I heard that the governor's daughter married the man whose leg I had lamed for his impertinence to me.
The 120l. had to be divided amongst six men, and out of it they had to pay towards the cost of sinking their shaft and maintaining their three horses which worked the "whip" for drawing up the water and dirt out of the mine. When they brought in their gold in a little tin billy, the men did not seem at all elated by their good fortune.
Sometimes men will work long and perseveringly, and earn little more than their food; but, buoyed up by hope, they determine to go on again, and at last, perhaps, they succeed. One day two men came into the bank with 120l. worth of gold, the proceeds of four days' mining on a new claim. They had been working for a long time without finding anything worth their while, and at last they struck gold.
Our first task was to choose a ship; it was exciting work rowing about in the harbour of Suez in order to find one that would suit us. A letter from our interpreter had told us we could have one at 120l. a month, a sum which our great experience of sailing-boats told us was quite too large.
With this good master I stayed till I was seventeen years old, when he died, leaving me a sum of money, about 120l. sterling, his best horse, and all his wearing apparel. I now maintained myself by working about the country, for anyone who would employ me, for nearly seven years, when I determined to settle down.
When I first went to India in 1802, I was a raw cornet of seventeen, with blazing red hair, six feet four in height, athletic at all kinds of exercises, owing money to my tailor and everybody else who would trust me, possessing an Irish brogue, and my full pay of 120l. a year.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking