Finding that neither their oratory nor their menaces had any effect upon the baboon army, a few guns were discharged at them, which seemed rather to astonish them, for it was something which they had never seen nor heard before; but as no immediate effect was visible amongst their army, they began to consider the firing as a sort of joke, and prepared to drive the invaders back to their boats. A volley, however, from the human assailants, by which three of the baboon army were laid prostrate, soon convinced the latter, that the firing was no joke, and after making some slight show of resistance, they carried away the dead, and retreated to the woods. The discovery of gold being the principal object of the adventure of Vermuyden, he landed frequently in different places, and proceeded to wash the sand, and examine the rocks. Vermuyden had acquired, in his native country, some slight knowledge of alchymy, and he carried out with him not only mercury, aqua regia, and large melting pots, but also a divining rod, which, however, as was most likely the case, was not found to exhibit any virtue. Vermuyden, however, was not to be laughed out of his superstitious notions, although his companions took every opportunity of turning his expectations into ridicule, but he found a very plausible excuse for the impotency of his divining rod in the discovery, that its qualities had all been dried up by the heat of the climate, and that, under every circumstance, it was not an instrument adapted to the country in which it was to be carried into use. On one occasion, however, the virtue of the divining rod appeared suddenly to have returned, for his eyes were gladdened with the sight of a large mass of apparent gold; the delusion, however, soon vanished, for, on examination, it was found to be nothing more than common spar. According to his report, the metal is never met with in low fertile and wooded spots, but always in naked and barren hills, embedded in a reddish earth. At one place, after a labour of twenty days, he succeeded in extracting twelve pounds, and, at length, he asserts that he arrived at the mouth of the mine itself, and saw gold in such abundance, as surprised him with joy and admiration. It does not appear, however, that he returned from his expedition considerably improved in his fortune by the discovery of this mine, nor does he give any notice of the real position of it, by which we are led to conjecture, that the discovery of the mine was one of those fabrications, which the travellers of those times were apt to indulge in, for the purpose of gratifying their own vanity, and exciting the envy of their fellow countrymen.