Here occurred the most extraordinary events. Amongst ordinary cases, seven workmen were cited, who amassed 500 ounces of gold in three weeks, which at £3 sterling per ounce, the then current value of gold in the colony, was about [110]260 francs per day each; at another time, two miners, in the same space of time, collected 400 ounces, or [111]735 francs per day each. One carman, who had never even removed the earth, made up a bag of £1,500 sterling in five weeks. A convict, but just freed, made £150 sterling in sixteen days. A workman, who had never exercised any trade but that of shoeing horses, was somewhat less fortunate, but brought home £100 sterling, clear, after paying all expenses, and working five weeks. A boy of fourteen, in less time, collected £400 sterling; and another of the same age, £120 sterling; but the ambition of the workmen knew no bounds; there was scarcely a man who set to work digging a hole who did not expect to come home at night with £40 or £50. These expectations were kept up by some most wonderful instances of fortune, the recital of which, repeated from group to group, amongst the diggers, soon became matters of history. One spot of a few feet square produced [112]45,000 fr.; four sailors, after six weeks’ work, loaded their cart with a case containing two hundred pounds of gold, about [113]260,000 francs; four other workmen, after two months’ labour, divided [114]1,000,000 francs. One workman was spoken of who gathered twenty-five pounds in two or three weeks, and another was known to have amassed eleven pounds in forty-eight hours; another, in less than one hour, made up a package weighing thirty pounds, worth at least [115]38,000 francs. It was said that the miners would no longer pick up gold-dust, it was not worth while; anything smaller than a pin’s head was thrown aside as too insignificant for notice. There must have been fine gleanings from these fastidious reapers.