It was fascinating to watch his slender deft fingers and his skilful manipulation of the gold pan. Filling it to overflowing with gray or red clay, he half sank it beneath the surface of a little pool and began rocking and turning it. Soon the large pebbles were all eliminated and only a muddy sediment left. This was washed and revolved until there seemed nothing but clear water, when as the last dirt was flowed over the rim there came the flash of the golden grains. Pressing his fingers on these, the pan was reversed for a moment, and then dipping his finger tips in the clear water of our glass vial the yellow grains sank swiftly to the bottom. Sometimes only a half penny’s worth would reward us, while again as much as a shilling’s value would be shown. Passing over the ridge we saw before us a deep and very narrow valley with precipitous sides, down which we slid and crawled, hanging on to vines and saplings to break our descent. At the bottom we found an interesting advance in the evolution of gold mining over the simplest form of gold panning. Two blacks were operating a “Long Tom,” which in mining vernacular is the name for a six by two, heavy, coarse, metal sieve set obliquely in the channel of a small brook. The gold-bearing gravel and clay is shovelled into it and puddled with a hoe, and the gold settles to the bottom to be later panned. Thus division of labor enters in—one black shovelling while his partner puddles. We asked them how much they were getting out and, as usual, they said “almost nothing,” or a few shillings’ worth at the most! This was to avoid any danger of their tiny holdings being considered too valuable and taken away from them. Mr. Wilshire took a pan here on another day and unearthed a tiny nugget, worth perhaps two shillings, much to the blacks’ discomfiture, who hastened to explain that such an opulent find was indeed rare. The poor fellows at best make little enough and it was pitiful to see the tiny packets of gold dust which they brought to the company’s store at the end of the week to exchange for food or credit checks. The universal Guianan name for this type of independent miner is “pork-knocker,” the explanation being that by knocking the rocks to pieces, they find just enough gold to procure the pork upon which they live. [Illustration: FIG. 84. PANNING GOLD.] They are allowed to work on side streams near the large mining operations, their total taking of gold being relatively insignificant, while they sometimes locate valuable deposits in the course of their wanderings. They are a jolly, happy-go-lucky type, apparently careless of their luck and invariably optimistic of the future.