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In conclusion, Zack cited the loan he had received, as a proof that the stranger could not be a swindler, at any rate; and referred to the evident familiarity with localities and customs in California, which he had shown in conversation that afternoon, as affording satisfactory proof in support of his own statement that he had gained his money by gold-digging. Mr.

Both were scarce in those days, when it seemed to be thought that gold-digging and the Decalogue could not be made to harmonize. The pioneer preachers found that one good woman made a better basis for evangelization than a score of nomadic bachelors. The first accession of a woman to a church in the mines was an epoch in its history.

His friend of the cottage, through whom he obtained his supply of spirits, was well acquainted with many of the returned diggers, and gave him full information on all subjects about which he inquired connected with the gold-digging.

Captain Bunting hooked his thumbs into the armholes of his waistcoat, and shook his head. It was evident that he had no faith in gold-digging.

In countries where commercial transactions were usually very limited the great difficulty was to obtain coin for the payment of wages, while in others there was the danger of the supply of labor failing through the enticements of superabundant capital or the more dazzling temptations of gold-digging.

Mrs Roby shook her head and said that she had not; and, besides, that if she had, it would be impossible for her to keep a lodger, as she had no servant, and could not attend on him herself. "Mrs Roby," said the Captain, "a gold-digging seaman don't want no servant, nor no attendance. What's up aloft?" By pointing to a small trap-door in the ceiling, he rendered the question intelligible.

After dinner, which was eaten hurriedly, most of the miners returned to their work, and Ned with his friend; under the guidance of McLeod, went down to the river to be initiated into the mysteries of gold-digging and washing.

A comfortable tenement of the kind costs from 300l. to 500l., an exceptional article 700l. We at once set out to cast a first glance upon the Izrah mine. The word is properly Izíá, a stone, also the name of the man who began gold-digging on the spot.

Back by the Coulterville trail, the peaks of Sierra Nevada in sight, across the North Fork of the Merced, by Gentry's Gulch, over hills and through canons, to Fremont's again, and thence to Stockton and San Francisco, all this at the end of August, when there has been no rain for four months, and the air is clear and very hot, and the ground perfectly dry; windmills, to raise water for artificial irrigation of small patches, seen all over the landscape, while we travel through square miles of hot dust, where they tell us, and truly, that in winter and early spring we should be up to our knees in flowers; a country, too, where surface gold-digging is so common and unnoticed that the large, six-horse stage-coach, in which I travelled from Stockton to Hornitos, turned off in the high road for a Chinaman, who, with his pan and washer, was working up a hole which an American had abandoned, but where the minute and patient industry of the Chinaman averaged a few dollars a day.

And certainly in the very early days of the gold-digging rushes, much harm was done to the settled industries of the land through everybody rushing away to the diggings. Farms were abandoned, workshops deserted, the sailors left their ships, the shepherds their sheep, the shop-keepers their shops all with the gold fever.