Next day, Sunday, I walked through the diggings, and observed the
words "No License Here" pinned or pasted outside every tent, and
during the next month only about three hundred licenses were taken
out, instead of the fourteen or fifteen thousand previously issued,
the digger-hunting was stopped, and a license-fee of forty shillings
for three months was substituted for that of thirty shillings per
month.
II.
As no man who had a good claim would be willing to run the risk of
losing it, the number of licenses taken out after the last meeting
would probably represent the number of really lucky diggers then at
work on Bendigo, viz., three hundred more or less, and of the three
hundred I don't think our gully could boast of one. All were finding
a little gold, but even the most fortunate were not making more than
"tucker." By puddling eight tubs of washdirt I found that we could
obtain about one pound's worth of gold each per day; but this was
hardly enough to keep hope alive. The golden hours flew over us, but
they did not send down any golden showers. I put the little that
fell to my share into a wooden match-box, which I carried in my
pocket. I knew it would hold twelve ounces--if I could get so much
--and looked into it daily and shook the gold about to see if I were
growing rich.
It was impossible to feel jolly, and I could see that Philip was
discontented.
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