golden harvest; when, on many a moonlight night every man, woman, and even child, might have been seen digging frantically on the tide-line at some low ebb, when certain bands of black sand were exposed; running the sand up in barrows, carrying it in baskets, heaping up the precious harvest above high-water mark, working with mad haste till the tide turned and covered these gold-bearing sands until the next low tide. Then the days following would be spent “washing,” and many a one would carry his billy full of good yellow gold to sell it to the rude little bank, and find he was the richer by a few hundreds after a lucky spell. But it was “lightly come, lightly go,” with most of them, and few, it seemed to me, kept their riches to any useful purpose. [1] They were ever on the move—the fever for ever driving them to try new diggings, where, as often as not, they found nothing. There seems to have been a strong code of honour among them—that respected each other’s gains: was there not an equal chance for every man? Where there was no regular police, public opinion safeguarded the digger.
The road comes to Okarito winding by tree-clad promontories and broad bays of the wide lagoon, which stretches its silvery fingers far among the hills. It is partly tidal; at low water there are pearly-coloured tide-flats where busy
- ↑ Note.—The prohibitive cost of the barest necessities of life ruined many a gold-seeker in the early days—the forests around produced only birds, and all stores were carried on pack-horses from place to place and sold at ruinous prices.
