While engaged in gold-digging, I had frequent opportunities of testing a doctrine often put forward by tobacco-smokers: that the "weed" is a powerful antidote to fear. Several times have I been under ground, where I believed myself in danger; and have been haunted by fear that kept me in continued agony, until my pipe was lit--when my apprehensions seemed at once to vanish literally in a cloud of smoke! There is something in the use of tobacco, that is unexplained, or untaught, in any work of philosophy, natural or unnatural, that I have yet read. The practice of smoking is generally condemned, by those who do not smoke. But certainly, there are times, when a man is the better for burning a little tobacco, although the immoderate use of it, like all other earthly blessings, may be converted into a curse. My readers may think, that a disquisition on tobacco can have but little to do with the Adventures of a Rolling Stone. But why should they object to knowing my opinions on things in general, since the adventures themselves have been often either caused or controlled by these very opinions? I have entered into a minute detail of my experience in mining affairs, under the belief, that no sensible reader will think it uninteresting; and, still continuing in this belief, I purpose going a _little_ farther into the subject. While engaged in gold-digging, I have often been led to notice the influence of the mind over the physical system. In washing dirt that contains but little gold, the body soon becomes weary--so much so, that the work is indeed toil. On the other hand, when the "dirt" is "rich," the digger can exert himself energetically from sunrise to sunset, without feeling fatigue at the termination of such a long spell of labour. In the business of mining--as in most other occupations--there are certain schemes and tricks, by which men may deceive each other, and sometimes themselves. Gold is often very ingeniously inserted into fragments of quartz rock--in order to facilitate the sale of shares in a "reef." I made the acquaintance of several diggers who had been deceived in this way; and whose eyes became opened to the trick, only after the tricksters had got out of their reach. On the other hand, I once saw a digger refuse to purchase a share in a reef, from which "splendid specimens" had been procured--fearing that some trickery was about to be practised upon him. One month afterwards, I saw him give, for the same share, just twenty times the amount that he had been first asked for it! I remember a party of "Tasmanians," who had turned up a large extent of ground, in a claim on Bendigo. The richest of the earth they washed as it was got out; and of the rest they had made a large heap, of what is called "wash dirt, Number 2." This, they knew, would not much more than pay for the washing; and, as a new "rush" had just been heard of, at a place some miles off, they resolved to sell their "wash dirt, Number 2."