A ROMANCE OF THE GOLDFIELDS

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXIII, Issue 14, 6 April 1905, Page 29

A ROMANCE OF THE GOLDFIELDS

THE IARGEST NUGGET EVER WON

It has been my privilege to meet many distlngjufeliefl men, and to hear from their lips tales ot adventure, of travel, and of curious things that have happened in various Musnits of life (writes the Ottawa correspondent of the ' Otago Daily Times ') ; but nothing i 9 renKvrihmii of dre:er interest tihan the story of the man who found tihe largest pure gold nugget ever won from mother earth. It was in 18f>2 that great discoveries of gold in Australia stirred the whole civilised world. Stories of forth nes grew to be commonplace, and it was generally taken for grajntod that if a man could but make his way to the Antipodes ho would come back rich. Many a i>-o*)ii" icllow learned to nis sorrow tihat sdilch was not the case. At that time, however, Samuel H'aw>kins Napier was the purser an boa,rd a clipper sailing slhi,p between Lb cirpool and Melbourne, and while he saw mem flocking to the diggings and returning with bags of gold, he was not turned away from his ocean voyages. Back and forth he sailed, making two and sometimes three trips in the year— for the journey was long and steamers were practically unknown in those days. In

1857 he wa<s imkrcad to quit his ship and join his brother Charles on tfie goldneld at Kingower. They staked out a 36ft square claim, took out a miner's right, and began striking their shafts. They had met with ba.it indifferent luck until the 14th Amgust, which is plretfty much tlhe Amstialiati mid-winter, when the surprising event ooqairred which [onus The Basis of this Story. It had better bo told in Napier's words, just as hcjgave tun em t<o me • — ' We had got down to the pipeclay bottom,' said he, 4 which marked the bed of an extinct river, and was t<he chief qharactenstic of all alluvial diggings in Australia, wiren my piak struck something hard. I knew at once that it wasn't a boulder ; there was not the same ring to it. It struck dead. Scraping away the dirt, I caught sight of the bright yellow color of pure gold. I knew at once that it was a nugget, but its size I could not tell. This was at about 10 o'clock in the morning. My brother was wording in another Hart of the claim, and I immediately called to him to come. My first thought was that someone would come along ml see that we were digging out a nugget, so we tried to keep it partly covered while we dug away with pick and sriov el . ' Weren't you excited ? ' I as"ked. ' Excitetd 9 ' waid N&ipier, interrogatively. ' I cannot describe to you how excited I was, especially when the muigget was at last got free. It was all I could do to lift it, and I saw that it was solid, pure gold. It was 2ft 4<iin long by 10m wide and from 1-iin to 3^ in thick It weighed effactly 1461 b 4 ok 3tlvv t, and was actually the largest and finest nugeet of pure p^o lid e\er faun'd anywhere in t,he world. One or two others were found that weighed as much, but they wcie not solid nor poire gold.' ' You kncfvv that it was of great vaU'.e ? ' T inquired in a speculative way. ' Ceitainlv , I kn^vv it wais a fortune, and the very Lnowledge uhat it was enormously valuable made us a.fnaid tjhat someone would "discover what we had found an 4 seek to rdb us. The fvrst thing we did was to co* cr it over with loose dirt, and then we sat down to plan how we would get it out so as to prenent anyone knowrng, it 9 We discussed scheme after sic-home, until we worked otursdves into a great state of anxidy How cot-ild we get that nugget ot without someone Reeling it ? Had we only unearthed a for tame to fird ourselves in danger of losing it " 7> I havje often myself tried to speculate a^ to what my sensations would be if I suddenly became ricji aryl the stern necessity for uni emitting work were eritiiely removed. Of course, no man knows how he would really act ; but there scorns to be two extieires to wiiilh inen''S feelings under such eircurn.sita.ncos swing They either go mad with joy and spend their wealth -with a wasteful hand, acting as though it would never end , or they become insanely apprehensive of losing their pri'e. I should probaibly be like the Namers. Their head-, first, fiwam with an indescribable intoxication of delight ; and then their hearts bpat furiously with a wild dio.vl l (v^t the fortune that had come to them so unexpectedly should as siu'dfdonly vanish. Few people realise The Cares of Wealth. They cannot understand why rnillionaiios a.re for the most part morose and unhappy men. nor why so many of them commit smicide. It all <spiings fiom the phantasm of loss which aver nnd anon foices its ugly features intio their dreams? The N spiers now realised Ihat sunshine 'a>nd shadow move swiftly aftier each other ITow could they keep from heing robbed of the nugget they ha<d found but a few miiiiutes before 9 What if to-mor-row slhoi-ld find klvem poor again? The peis-ipiiratio-n pduired from tlheir faces in the agony of feai that this thot'igjht produced. Like all men who have gained ii"hos they 'began to mistrust everybody and evexvthing. Some shadowy spectre was ever running away with their nugget. But Something had to be done, and done quicl.lv, no matter now great the risk. Necessity is always the mother of invention. 'At last we hit upon a plan,' continued Na>r>ior. 'lWe remembered that we had loaned a tub to a tailor in the mining camp. We w r ould go flown to his nlace nnd get the tub on a wheelbarrow, and as we passed the h,olei where the migeet lay we would place it in tlhe tub. We arranged the whole nltvn very -carefully. We were to take thrns in wheel ma:, ami if anyone spoke to us one was to stoip and talk to him while ttie otih'er wheeled on. The scheme worked well, and just about dark we landed the migget in ' our tent. We threw it under one of the l^w beds, and sat Sown to wait for midnight. Early in t<he ritrht we pint out our ligftt, and pretendefl to go to bed. Tt seemed to us 12 o'clock would never come ; but at last all lights were out, and not a soul stirred in the

camp. Now was our time to put the niugget in a place of safety. ' Witih ipick and shovel we began to dig right in the qentre of our tent. We worked hard, and in the course of a few hour-? we Tiad a hole 6ft deep. Into that we laid the nugget and hlled in the earth with great care, sio as not to leave a trace of our work, 'linen we ielt safe. No one had seen the nugget but ourselves, and it was now buried 6ft out of sight. No one could get it out without great trotible. 1 Bat a ru.ggct buried in the ground was no use to us. We must get it to Melbourne. That was our next problem. There was plenty of time to organise a plan, and, besides, there might be other nuggets in aur claim. We miust see about, that. For a time we watched the tent ; but after a while we went to work every day and left the tent open. We thought it the best way to prevent suspicion, and it worked all right. No one in tlhe oamp knew of the nugget, and out fortune arid lives depended on The Secret being Well Kept. For three months the nugget lay buried in the ground, and <at the end of that period we had washed out our claim. We fotfnd a number of nuggets in l#ie same iij >le, -one of which weighed 81b. But for the most parlt tlhe big nmgjget was all we actually got out of the claim ; for after paying up all our scores we had only a thousand dollars each left from the washings Slump lies were enonwously dear. Then we arranged to quit the diggings and go to Melbourne, which meant a long ride. Armed with only a Shotgun and a reviol*. er we started in a one-horse oart, and in due, time, without delay or suspicion on tlhe part of others that we had a piize, we reached Melbourne. ' Next day we deposited the nugget in the bank, ard our fears were at an end. The news spread li"ke wiMrue, and thousands rushed off to the Kingower goldfiel'cis While in Melbourne, we named the nugget the " Blanche Barclay," after the beautiful daughter of the Governor, and by that name the model in the British M>isou>m is known. The bank gave us an insurance of £1)0,000 for the safe delivery of the nugget in Loadon, and at the end of August we sailed for England ' Whan v. c arrived in England we were made the lions of London. The papers wrote up the story of the great rvigget, and told who we were. I was born on the Bay de Chaleurs, .so that I was recognised c c r y where as a Canadian. The Queen sent for us, and we dined at Buckingham Palace We drove down from the Bank of England under a heavy escort, taking the nugget with us Her Majesty and the Prinlce Contort reveii\ed us most graciously, and the Prince of Wale% who was a lad of IS, showed a very deep interest in the nugget T do not wonder a t tJbat-, tor it was one of the prettiest sights one could see. It was 2i 7 carats fine, or as near absolutely p>ure gold as it is possible to get. Of course, the young prince co' 1 1 not lift it ' Th on the nuccet w r as put on exhibition at the Crystal Palace, for which privilege we were paid £&0 a week. We lived at a swell hotel on the Surrey <ide, and 'had a creat time. This lasted for three months, during Which time Sir Roderick Murchi^on had a cia.st m,a f de of the nugget for the British Museum. The work was so perfectly done by an Italian that you couldn't tell one from the other Tintil you lifted them. lie also gave me a duplicate. Finally, We Sold the Nugget for £12,000. Tt w?s not worth more than £10,000 intrinsically, but being the largest and finest gold nugget ever found, we got £2000 niore than its real value. After a tinw ]■" passed into the pos-scssion of the Bank of England, the intention being to keep it for the British Museum : but about that time a new general manager, or new 'directorate, came in, and, to the surprise and regret of e'-ervone, the nugget was one day melted ('own and turned into money. It yielded about 10,000 sovereigns, and that was the end of tjhe great nugget.' The Na piers came back to Canada, and engaiged in 'hipbuildins: Samuel, who was the discoverer of the nugget, was elected to the Legislature of New Brujiswick. They were not fortunate in their enterprise, and <ne morning; they awoke to find themselves as poor as Ihe day they began to dig for gold at Kingower. Charles soo n afterward died, and Samuel became a wanderer. Tntenrperance succeeded to discouragement, and on the day he told me his story, in 1897, I bought him l>is cHntieT and gave him money enough to reach the point where a.n engagement awaiied him Last winter, in a lonely hut on the Tapper Ga-tineau. a T»o r lv was founfd, fro 7 en stiff and partly eaten by wild animals. Tt was all that remained of Door old Sam Na^jpr. He had probably been taken ill when alone, and perished in this miserable way.