"Diggings" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... They took a carriage, and as they were whirled rapidly through the steep, narrow streets on their way to the hotel, the little city seemed to them like a thoroughly typical, western, mining town. The town was surrounded by mountains, and prospect holes and abandoned placer diggings could be seen in every direction, while interspersed among the business blocks of brick and stone, were tiny cabins, built of logs,—all relics of the earlier days when Silver City was but ...
— The Award of Justice - Told in the Rockies • A. Maynard Barbour
... the son of a former lessee of Covent Garden Opera House. His companion was a man named Hull, an ex-publican from Lambeth. With these two chance companions we entered into a sort of partnership; for some months after reaching the diggings ...
— Reminiscences of a South African Pioneer • W. C. Scully
... thirty feet high along the ledge of rock, and had cut a channel for the Yuba along the lower slopes of the valley. Of course, when the rain set in, as everybody knew, the dam would go, and the river diggings must be abandoned till the water subsided and a fresh dam was made; but there were two months before them yet, and everyone hoped to be down to the bedrock before the water interrupted ...
— Among Malay Pirates - And Other Tales Of Adventure And Peril • G. A. Henty
... deer were found, and that pocket gophers, badgers, and cottontail rabbits were present. Later in 1935, H.P. Pratt wrote that he had found evidence of badgers "at the lower well in Prater Canyon, where on September 23, there were extensive badger diggings and fresh tracks in the vicinity of the prairie dog colony there." Badgers are common in the lowlands around the Mesa and they are common enough on the Mesa to be regarded as nuisances by archeologists on account ...
— Mammals of Mesa Verde National Park, Colorado • Sydney Anderson
... with praise. It matters not what the purchase-money is. The distinguishing sign of slavery is to have a price, and be bought for it. Again, it matters not what kind of work you are set on; some slaves are set to forced diggings, others to forced marches; some dig furrows, others field-works, and others graves. Some press the juice of reeds, and some the juice of vines, and some the blood of men. The fact of the captivity is the same whatever work we are set upon, though the fruits of the toil ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... perpetual motion, Full of bother And pother, Would make paralytic old Bridget A Fidget. So you see (to my notion), Better leave our downy Diminutive browny Alone, near his "diggings;" Ever free to pursue, Rush round, and renew His loved vaulting Unhalting, His whirling, And curling, And twirling, And swirling, And his ways, on the whole So unsteady! 'Pon my soul, Having gazed Quite amazed, On each wonderful ...
— On the Tree Top • Clara Doty Bates
... of Brazil also resembled those of India in quality, being on the average better than those of the present South African mines. It may be added that even the African diamonds that are found in "river diggings" average better in quality than those of the volcanic pipes which form the principal source of the world's supply to-day. There seems to be a superabundance of iron oxide in the rocks of the African mines and in the diamonds ...
— A Text-Book of Precious Stones for Jewelers and the Gem-Loving Public • Frank Bertram Wade
... taken the boat at Pierre's Portage, fifty miles farther down the river. He had come direct from the creeks, and his impressions of the motley pioneer life at the gold-diggings were so vivid that he had found an isolated corner of the deck where he could scribble them in ...
— The Yukon Trail - A Tale of the North • William MacLeod Raine
... and less nice. I am not ashamed to say that I love you, because I shall never marry you. And I loved you much when I did not know you at all, when you first came down from Alaska and I first went into the office. You were my hero. You were the Burning Daylight of the gold-diggings, the daring traveler and miner. And you looked it. I don't see how any woman could have looked at you without loving you—then. But you don't ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London
... means common in Yorkshire, but many of the round ones that have been thoroughly examined reveal no traces of metal, stone implements only being found in them.[1] In Mr. Thomas Bateman's book, entitled "Ten Years' Diggings," there are details of two long barrows, sixty-three circular ones, and many others that had been already disturbed, which were systematically opened by Mr. James Ruddock of Pickering. The fine collection of urns and other relics are, Mr. Bateman states, in his own possession, and ...
— The Evolution Of An English Town • Gordon Home
... diggings are at the other end of the house, looking into the stable-yard. I like to be able to put my head out of window and order my horse—saves time and trouble. We keep the rooms ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... exactly; I was calling on some friends; but as you say, some of the profession live in the street, and now you mention it, I suppose I shall have to find some new diggings.' ...
— A Mummer's Wife • George Moore
... our diggings right now?" Paula heard her husband ask with one of his abrupt shifts that she knew of old time tokened his drawing together the many threads of a ...
— The Little Lady of the Big House • Jack London
... two sons Caracalla and Geta in A.D. 203, to commemorate victories. It was once surmounted by a brazen chariot with six horses, on which stood Severus, crowned by Victory. The pavement of the Forum, which has been laid bare by recent diggings, lies some twenty feet lower than the level of the street which now passes at the side of the diggings. Near the northern end stands the Column of Phocas, 54 feet high, which was erected in 608 in honor of the tyrant Phocas, of the Eastern Empire. All ...
— The Youthful Wanderer - An Account of a Tour through England, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany • George H. Heffner
... forget how many years ago—all alone, bent double with sciatica, and with six bits in his pocket and an axe upon his shoulder. Long, useless years of seafaring had thus discharged him at the end, penniless and sick. Without doubt he had tried his luck at the diggings, and got no good from that; without doubt he had loved the bottle, and lived the life of Jack ashore. But at the end of these adventures, here he came; and, the place hitting his fancy, down he sat to make a new life of it, far from crimps and the salt ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... occurred to me that you did not know my name—nor I yours. My own," he added, as she stood unresponsive, "is Ryder—Jack Ryder. You can always get a letter to me at the Agricultural Bank. That is the quickest way. My friend, McLean there, always knows where my diggings are. When in Cairo I stop with him; or at ...
— The Fortieth Door • Mary Hastings Bradley
... whether he could legally hold his salvage fees, paddled down to Bolivia, a small town in the state of Mississippi, to obtain legal advice in regard to the matter. The white people referred him to a negro justice of the peace, whom they assured him "had more law-larnin' than any white man in the diggings, and is the honestest nigger in these parts." Being ushered into the presence of a dignified negro, the cutter of fishing-poles informed the "justice" that he desired legal advice in ...
— Four Months in a Sneak-Box • Nathaniel H. Bishop
... yourself, fresh from England," the farmer observed, scanning Guy closely. "He's off for the diamond diggings. I ...
— What's Bred In the Bone • Grant Allen
... their tents on the ridge, cursing their luck—or the want of it—to satisfy their hunger. Then they wandered with one accord to the flat where Cudlip's Rest was situated, and assisted in making the only "pile" which was ever amassed on the diggings ...
— Colonial Born - A tale of the Queensland bush • G. Firth Scott
... place and the Saunders' house was, used to be called Punkhassett—which is Injun for 'The last place the Almighty made'—and if you've read the circulars of the land company that's booming Punkhassett this year, you'll remember that the principal attraction of them diggings is the 'magnificent water privileges.' 'Twas the water privileges that had hooked me. Clams was thick on the flats at low tide, and fish was middling plenty in the bay. I had two weirs set; one a deep-water weir, a half mile beyond the bar, and t'other just inside ...
— Cape Cod Stories - The Old Home House • Joseph C. Lincoln
... but the means of communication with San Francisco and the diggings were very uncertain. I ...
— The Boat Club - or, The Bunkers of Rippleton • Oliver Optic
... miners, with pick, shovel, and pan for washing out gold from the gravel it was found in, started out "prospecting" for "pay-dirt." The gold-diggings were usually along the rivers, and this surface, or "placer," mining was done by shovelling the "pay-dirt" into a pan or a wooden box called a cradle, and rocking or shaking this box from side to side while pouring water over the earth. The heavy gold, either ...
— Stories of California • Ella M. Sexton
... spanned by a bridge. Pop. (1904) 1037. Originally called Klipdrift, the town was the first founded by the diggers after the discovery in 1867 of diamonds along the valley of the Vaal, and it had for some years a large floating population. On the discovery of the "dry diggings" at Kimberley, the majority of the diggers removed thither. Barkly West remains, however, the centre of the alluvial diamonds industry. The diamonds of this district are noted for their purity and lustre, and are generally ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various
... that have come from the diggings in California and Australia have hitherto been so loud and so many, that they have served only to confuse. We have the image before our fancy of a vast crowd of human beings hastening over seas and deserts towards certain geographical points, where they meet, struggle, fix. We see them picking ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 430 - Volume 17, New Series, March 27, 1852 • Various
... Porter's ranch on the slopes toward the valley. Facing ahead he caught, faint and thin, the roar of the Crystal Star's stamp mill. Over to the right—the road would loop down toward it at the next turning—was Columbus, gutted and dying slowly among its abandoned diggings. ...
— Treasure and Trouble Therewith - A Tale of California • Geraldine Bonner
... came to my diggings in the evening and invited me to join their party then going to a theatre. They had reserved some seat but one of the party for whom a seat had been reserved was unavoidably detained and hence a vacant seat. The news of my brother's illness had made me a little sad, the theatre, I thought, would ...
— Indian Ghost Stories - Second Edition • S. Mukerji
... a hoarding near Adelphi Terrace; I saw it afar off near Carfax Street; it cried out again upon me in Kensington High Street, and burst into a perfect clamour; six or seven times I saw it as I drew near my diggings. It certainly had an air of being something more ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells
... attempts to secure water, Isaac was successful; he found the well of water that followed the Patriarchs. Abraham had obtained it after three diggings. Hence the name of the well, Beer-sheba, "the well of seven diggings," the same well that will supply water to Jerusalem and its environs ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg
... of General Buller's force marched into Sabi Drift, and on the 26th the army, united again, advanced north for Pilgrim's Rest. Burgher's Nek and Mac-Mac diggings were reached about noon on ...
— The Record of a Regiment of the Line • M. Jacson
... back to Oxford after that," he continued. "I've diggings there, don't you know? An old chum of mine's a fellow of Magdalen. I was just in time for eights' week. A magnificent walk-over for our fellows. Ever seen the race? No? Oh, I say, that's too bad. You must come ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... for the Danes, and trying to make artillery and take Lincoln Keep. And all the while—so unequal is fortune when God so wills—throughout the Southern Weald, from Hastings to Hind-head, every copse glared with charcoal-heaps, every glen was burrowed with iron diggings, every hammer-pond stamped and gurgled night and day, smelting and forging English iron, wherewith ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley
... Mr. Yancy, taking his unhurried satisfaction of the other. Then with a final skilful kick he sent Mr. Blount sprawling. "Don't let me catch you around these diggings again, Dave Blount, or I swear to God I'll be the ...
— The Prodigal Judge • Vaughan Kester
... style as any miner, and so boring deep notches into the edge of the bed. When a blackbird had made a good hole he came back to visit it at various times of the day, and kept a strict watch. If he found any other blackbird or thrush infringing on his diggings, he drove him away ferociously. Never were such works carried on as at the edge of that seaweed; they moved a bushel of it. To the eye there seemed nothing in it but here and there a small white worm; but they found plenty, and the weather being so bitter, I let them do much as they liked; ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... about. But she was bidden draw up to the table, and during the meal discovered time and space in which to find herself. She talked little, and that principally about the land and weather, while the man wandered off into a long description of the difference between the shallow summer diggings of the Lower Country and the deep winter diggings of ...
— The God of His Fathers • Jack London
... stage agent, and hotel keeper in the town of McAulyville, put me up for that night, and although the room which I occupied was shared by no less than five other individuals, he nevertheless most kindly provided me with a bed to myself. I can't say that I enjoyed the diggings very much. A person lately returned from Fort Garry detailed his experiences of that place and his interview with the President at some length. A large band of the Sioux Indians was ready to support the Dictator against all comers, and a vigilant watch was ...
— The Great Lone Land - A Narrative of Travel and Adventure in the North-West of America • W. F. Butler
... California, having joined a marauding party who were traversing that country, was amongst the earliest who enriched themselves from its bountiful yield. They gave up their wild pursuits, and with energy and prudence stored-up their diggings, and resolved to lead a new life. With the result of one year's digging, Lorenzo repaired to San Francisco, entered upon a lucrative business, increased his fortune, and soon became a leading man of the place. The hope that at some day he ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... followed by the mate, a fine, daring fellow, much accustomed to roughing it on the diggings, and not the least afraid of natives, I walked up the long beach to the village, to the chief's house. The old man was seated on the platform in front of the house, and did not even deign to rise to receive us. I told ...
— Adventures in New Guinea • James Chalmers
... How do you like our new diggings? Some removal, this, isn't it? I must say the place looks nice. It's topping to be here at last. By the by, I suppose you'll be getting in Rotherwood soon? ...
— A Popular Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... want of shepherds. Nor was this altogether without foundation; for the stockholders have actually been considerable sufferers: all the industrial projects mentioned have been stopped short; and the gold-diggings still continue to attract to themselves, as if by a spell, the labour of the country. The panic, however, has now subsided. It is seen that the result is not so bad as was anticipated, and hopes are entertained ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 435 - Volume 17, New Series, May 1, 1852 • Various
... of good grub along," chuckled Obed. "I was on my way home at the time I glimpsed your fire; and bein' full o' wonder concernin' who could be around these diggings right now I crept up to spy on ye. But say, soon's I glimpsed your crowd, and saw that you was only a bunch o' boys, why I felt easier, 'cause I knew then you couldn't ...
— At Whispering Pine Lodge • Lawrence J. Leslie
... limited capabilities of Luderitzbucht were concerned, and that night Dick and four other hungry men made up for lost time. The food was good, and the champagne that washed it down excellent, and Dick, as he bade the other men "Good-night," and turned away from the hotel towards his old diggings, felt at peace with all mankind. He had still twenty pounds in his pocket, he had the professor's promise of leading another trip to the north-east; and above all, he had a thousand carats of diamonds tied tightly in a bundle ...
— A Rip Van Winkle Of The Kalahari - Seven Tales of South-West Africa • Frederick Cornell
... the rest of the old-timers, the men of Forty Mile and Circle City. At the time of the discovery, nearly all of them were over to the west at work in the old diggings or prospecting for new ones. As they said of themselves, they were the kind of men who are always caught out with forks when it rains soup. In the stampede that followed the news of Carmack's strike very few old miners ...
— Revolution and Other Essays • Jack London
... opened up the golden treasures of the Black Hills form a stirring chapter in the history of the winning of the West. The story as told in this book is a vivid one, made more valuable and interesting because Colonel Stokes writes of his own experiences. He was one of the first to reach the new gold diggings in the seventies, and he saw the whole development from the early exciting days, on during the mad rush to Deadwood, to the discovery of some of the greatest gold mines in ...
— Ox-Team Days on the Oregon Trail • Ezra Meeker
... is warm, and then do it in the morning. In this cold season you shall do well to cover the ground with the leaves of trees, straw, or short litter, to keep them warm; and every year you shall give them three dressings or half diggings; viz. in April, June, and August; this, for the first year, still after rain: The second Spring after transplanting, purge them of all superfluous shoots and scions, reserving only the most towardly for the future stem; this to be done yearly, as long as they continue in the nursery; and if of ...
— Sylva, Vol. 1 (of 2) - Or A Discourse of Forest Trees • John Evelyn
... have their sources in the mountains of Luquillo are more or less auriferous. These are: the Rio Prieto, the Fajardo, the Espiritu Santo, the Rio Grande, and, especially, the Mameyes. The river Loiza also contains gold, but, judging from the traces of diggings still here and there visible along the beds of the Mavilla, the Sibuco, the Congo, the Rio Negro, and Carozal, in the north, it would seem that these rivers and their affluents produced the coveted metal in largest quantities. The Duey, the Yauco, and the Oromico, or Hormigueros, on the south ...
— The History of Puerto Rico - From the Spanish Discovery to the American Occupation • R.A. Van Middeldyk
... by the name of Paul Kane that crossed west by the Athabasca Pass in 1846. In those days the Yellowhead Pass was little used. It came into most prominence after the Cariboo Diggings discoveries of gold. Parties came out going east as early as 1860 from the gold-mines. About that time Sir James Hector was examining all this country, and he named a lot of it, too. More than a hundred ...
— The Young Alaskans in the Rockies • Emerson Hough
... enter and work our way toward the center of the apartment, our attention is attracted by a coarse, brutal "tough," evidently just fresh in from the diggings; who, mounted on the summit of an empty whisky cask, is exhorting in rough language, and in the tones of a bellowing bull, to an audience of admiring miners assembled at his feet, which, by the way, are not of the most diminutive pattern imaginable. ...
— Deadwood Dick, The Prince of the Road - or, The Black Rider of the Black Hills • Edward L. Wheeler
... ministrations. After a pause the rapping recommenced. Kane was just securing the last strip of plaster and preserved a preoccupied silence. Then the door flew open abruptly and a figure appeared impatiently on the threshold. It was that of a miner recently returned from the gold diggings—so recently that he evidently had not had time to change his clothes at his adjacent hotel, and stood there in his high boots, duck trousers, and flannel shirt, over which his coat was slung like a hussar's jacket ...
— Under the Redwoods • Bret Harte
... I'll back her for the queerest bit of horseflesh going any way about these diggings. I thought she was mad at first, but I believe ...
— The Claverings • Anthony Trollope
... the Sneezer will in a brief forenoon emancipate not only Europe and America, but the dweller beyond Jordan and the inhabitant of the diggings by Bendigo. Lay Chiavari in ashes, and you will no longer need Inspector D, nor ask aid from the head-office. Here is what the age especially worships, a remedy combining cheapness with efficiency. It may be said that we have no more ...
— Cornelius O'Dowd Upon Men And Women And Other Things In General - Originally Published In Blackwood's Magazine - 1864 • Charles Lever
... husband was at work in the diggings, two red-skins came up to him and wounded him with arrows, but he caught up his rifle and soon made ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler
... from the diggings, clambered to the tops of the houses nearest to the fire, and dashed the water on the roof and sides, and by this means held the flames in check until other lines were formed. In half an hour nearly fifteen hundred ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... the camp they sighted the pitted shores of their own diggings. Sitting in the McMurdos' wagon they had speculated gayly on Low's surprise. Susan, on the seat beside Glen, had been joyously full of the anticipation of it, wondered what he would say, and then fell to imagining it with closed lips and ...
— The Emigrant Trail • Geraldine Bonner
... less lasting than it seemed, was given this year to emigration to Australia, by the discovery in the colony of gold in quartz beds, under much the same conditions that the precious metal had been found in California. The diggings, with the chance of a large nugget, became for a time the favourite dream of adventurers. Nay, the dream grew to such an absorbing desire, that men heard of it as a disease known as "the gold fever." And quiet people at ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen, (Victoria) Vol II • Sarah Tytler
... making fortunes. I know a public-house, not larger than the Two Mile Oak, [Footnote: A small public-house between Totnes and Newton.] that cleared 500 pounds in three months, so it was reported. Sydney, I hear, is as cheap to live in as London. As to the diggings, I cannot say much about them. I have seen many who have made money there, and many who have lost it again. It is generally spent as fast as it is got. I hope we shall send you some specimens of gold dust soon. Please to give my love to my ...
— Successful Exploration Through the Interior of Australia • William John Wills
... I come to the queer part of the business. I was in diggings out Hampstead way, 17 Potter's Terrace. Well, I was sitting doing a smoke that very evening after I had been promised the appointment, when up came my landlady with a card which had 'Arthur Pinner, Financial Agent,' printed upon it. I had never heard the name before ...
— Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... to its owners; but this matter of identification was not easy, for much of the gold was found quite loose in the form of sovereigns and nuggets and dust. The dust was ordered to be sent up with the 'dirt' that surrounded it, and a process of gold-washing was instituted, after the regular diggings fashion, with a bowl and water. Tons of 'dirt' were sent up and washed in this way, and a large quantity of gold saved. The agent showed me the bowl that was used on this occasion. He also showed me sovereigns that had been kept as curious specimens. Some of them were partly destroyed, as if they ...
— Under the Waves - Diving in Deep Waters • R M Ballantyne
... "Yorke," said he, "did you ever hear of a sickness that fell suddenly upon this kingdom, some years ago? It was called the gold fever. Hundreds and thousands, as you phrase it, caught the mania, and flocked out to the Australian gold-diggings, to 'make their fortunes' by picking up gold. Boy!"—laying his hand on Roland's shoulder—"how many of those, think you, instead of making their fortunes, only ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood
... bright as burnished gold; high, but not very high, cheek bones; and small, sharp, twinkling eyes, were the Gaberlunzie personal characteristics. There were three in the army, two in the navy, and one at a foreign embassy; one was at the diggings, another was chairman of a railway company, and our own more particular friend, Undecimus, was picking up crumbs about the world in a manner that satisfied the paternal mind that he was quite able to ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... diggings quite suddenly. The trail ran around the corner of a hill; and there they were below us! In the wide, dry stream bottom perhaps fifty men were working busily, like a lot of ants. Some were picking away at the surface ...
— Short Stories and Selections for Use in the Secondary Schools • Emilie Kip Baker
... that we picked up a Denver man at the cross roads, and he told us a good deal about the country and the Gregory Diggings. He seemed a very entertaining person and a man well posted in the affairs of Colorado. By and by ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... and the latter the city, lay on both sides of the little Guadarranque stream, generally called First River; and the row of tumuli on the left bank probably denotes the site of the famous docks. I was anxious to open diggings in 1872, but permission was not forthcoming: now, however, they say that the Duke of Medina ...
— To the Gold Coast for Gold - A Personal Narrative in Two Volumes.—Vol. I • Richard F. Burton
... bunch. Anybody coming back from the diggings has gold in his clothes, so it won't hurt 'em none, and I propose to give that stage line an advertising that won't do it a bit of good. Come along, Red; let's see that lad that has the shack up the river. We need something to eat, ...
— Red Saunders • Henry Wallace Phillips
... out patrolling the beach after each storm, and she usually found patches of black or ruby sand which carried considerable gold. . . . It seems reasonable enough, Kayak, for it's the same with all placer diggings along the sea." ...
— Where the Sun Swings North • Barrett Willoughby
... the Cook, he offer to one illuminated public and most particular for British knowing men in general one remarkable, pretty, famous, and splendid collection of old goods, all quite new, excavated from private personal diggings. He sells cooked clays, old marble stones, with basso-relievos, with stewing-pots, brass sacrificing pots, and antik lamps. Here is a stocking of calves heads and feets for single ladies and amateurs travelling. Also old coppers and candlesticks; with Nola ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 218, December 31, 1853 • Various
... for the present," Arthur answered, in a low tone. "I had to see you. There are strangers continually watching our diggings, and making inquiries about Isobel. There are things happening which I cannot understand ...
— The Master Mummer • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... to Australia to dig gold in 1847. We drove an ox team into the interior with other prospectors doing the same until we came to diggings. The men would dig and then "cradle" the soil for the gold. This cradle was just like a baby's cradle only it had a sieve in the bottom. One man would have a very long handled dipper with which he would dip water from a ...
— Old Rail Fence Corners - The A. B. C's. of Minnesota History • Various
... to the doctor and Mrs. Quackenboss. He remarked that he was connected with one of the biggest financial concerns in the Southern hemisphere; and that he would pay Elihu fifteen hundred a year to represent him at the diggings. ...
— An African Millionaire - Episodes in the Life of the Illustrious Colonel Clay • Grant Allen
... for three years he had kept up almost intact. He had put literature, and art, and the joys of the connoisseur between himself and the measureless human ill around him. It had spoilt his personal life, had interfered with his travels, his diggings, his friendships with foreign scholars. Well, then, as far as he could he would take no account of it, would shut it out, and rail at the men and the forces that made it. He barely looked at the newspapers; he never ...
— Elizabeth's Campaign • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... a haul, Marlowe," said Jack. "I haven't been in luck lately. If I could raise a thousand or so I'd clear out of these diggings. The cops ...
— Slow and Sure - The Story of Paul Hoffman the Young Street-Merchant • Horatio Alger
... first half of the afternoon and thinking idly (and still more madly) for the second half. He had gone to a supper where he was uproarious, and on to a debating club where he was perfectly insufferable, and the melancholy Smith was melancholy still. Then, as he was going home to his diggings he remembered the eccentricity of his friend and master, the Warden of Brakespeare, and resolved desperately to turn in to ...
— Manalive • G. K. Chesterton
... Ere the diggings had broken out on Bruggabrong, our nearest neighbour, excepting, of course, boundary-riders, was seventeen miles distant. Possum Gully was a thickly populated district, and here we were surrounded by homes ranging from half a mile to two and three miles away. This was a new experience for ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin
... distinction of having preserved for mankind a full and vivid literary record of a period otherwise, so far as native memorials are concerned, clouded in obscurity. A few fragmentary suggestions, derived from ancient stone monuments or from diggings in tumuli and graves, are all that Gaul or Britain have to contribute to a knowledge of that important period just before and just after the beginning of our era, when the armies of Rome were overrunning western Europe and were brought, for the first time, ...
— The Glories of Ireland • Edited by Joseph Dunn and P.J. Lennox
... annexed, as well as Texas, and before Ned Crawford would be old enough to cast his first vote, there was to be a great tide of eager gold hunters pouring along what was called the Tehuantepec route to the placers and diggings. ...
— Ahead of the Army • W. O. Stoddard
... aspect. Besides, the ancient tools that you mention as existing in such numbers down there are becoming so scarce as to be very valuable and well worth collecting. So, on the whole, I think we had better go and take a look at your prehistoric diggings this ...
— The Copper Princess - A Story of Lake Superior Mines • Kirk Munroe
... make me blush, Phil. Then, if I had to stay down in these diggings long, I'd sure make it a point to lost some weight. It ain't exactly pleasant you see, knowing that even the wild critters are having their mouths water at sight of you. But look at that big bass I yanked in, would you? Must weigh ...
— Chums in Dixie - or The Strange Cruise of a Motorboat • St. George Rathborne
... would have no difficulty in spotting such a maneuver. What chance would your soldiers have against a shower of jungle seed? You would only be sending them to destruction. No, the only way is for someone familiar with those old underground diggings to enter them, locate the birds and the ...
— The Seed of the Toc-Toc Birds • Francis Flagg
... Zeb Wright, made a big fortune in the mines. Him and me was one of the very first that went out to the diggings. And he made his big pile by real hard hand work—and by none o' your blasting and crushing and lifting ...
— Her Mother's Secret • Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... gold-fever had stricken everybody—merchants even, mechanics, clerks, all in fact but the few cool hands who realised that by remaining in the half-deserted towns they were sure of making that fortune the winning of which at the diggings was problematical; and one consequence of this was that when seamen deserted a ship no one could be found to take their places; and Captain Staunton could stand on his own poop and count at least fifty vessels whose cargoes were on board, hatches battened down, and everything ready for sea; ...
— The Pirate Island - A Story of the South Pacific • Harry Collingwood
... the audience that she had been freshly aspersed by the objectionable Seekamp. "I offered," she said, "though merely a woman, to meet him with pistols, but the cur who attacks a lady's character runs away from my challenge. He says he will drive me from the Diggings. Well, I intend to turn the tables, and to make Seekamp de-camp. I very much regret," she added, "having been compelled to assert myself at the expense of Mr. Seekamp, but, really it was not my fault. His attacks on my art were most ungentlemanly. I challenged him to fight a ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham
... case, and you don't need to be told how every step of the way threw light upon the next until I had reached the goal. Robert Redmayne is seen on the night of Michael Pendean's supposed destruction. He is traced home again to Paignton. He leaves his diggings before anybody is up and, from that exit, vanishes off the face of the earth. But during the same day—probably by noon—Giuseppe Doria arrives at 'Crow's Nest'—an Italian whom nobody knows, ...
— The Red Redmaynes • Eden Phillpotts
... extraordinary season. May passed, no snow—June the same, only heavy, I may say, nearly constant showers of rain. 'A glorious year,' the diggers called it. 'Never such a season for work since the diggings broke out. Two months' work at a time when there is never any water. O, what a wash-up there ...
— Happy Days for Boys and Girls • Various
... "Turn up year after year at the old diggings, (i. e. the Senate House,) and be plucked," &c. ...
— Verses and Translations • C. S. C.
... Klondike, when we were nearly starved, and our money gave out because our grub was exhausted and the price of provisions ran so high, when we were thankful to work for almost any wages on Wrath's diggings if only we might get food and keep warm, we still kept our faith in one another and our purpose in sight. You'll remember how we used to talk together throughout those long dark days when, from November to February, we scarcely ever saw the sun and the thermometer sometimes ...
— Murder Point - A Tale of Keewatin • Coningsby Dawson
... it one might have thought Mr. William Gum had gone out under the most favourable auspices. He was in Australia; had gone up to seek his fortune at the gold-diggings, and was making money rapidly. In a short time he should refund with interest the little sum he had borrowed from Goldsworthy and Co., and which was really not taken with any ill intention, but was more an accident than anything else. ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood
... your diggings," he said. "I had to go through London. They told me you had started. It is ...
— All Roads Lead to Calvary • Jerome K. Jerome
... a day of privations, and the boy endured more than his share of them without complaint. Somehow he got along, knocking about from one point to another, now at the gold diggings, now on the San Francisco wharfs, and again as a deck hand on the coasters that plied ...
— The Pirate of Panama - A Tale of the Fight for Buried Treasure • William MacLeod Raine
... baronet's service, to appropriate to himself many small valuables of a portable character. These he managed safely to dispose of, and with the money purchased an outfit and paid his passage to South Australia. His shallow brains had been fired with the idea of making his fortune at the diggings. He felt sure that, if he could find Frank Oldfield, he should soon ingratiate himself with him, and that he might then take advantage of his good-nature and of his intemperance to gather to himself sufficient funds to enable him to start as gold-digger. A wretched ...
— Frank Oldfield - Lost and Found • T.P. Wilson
... Trans-Baikal Provinces, they had been driven like cattle until the remnant that had survived the horrors of the awful journey reached the desolate valley of the Kara and were finally halted at the Lower Diggings. ...
— The Angel of the Revolution - A Tale of the Coming Terror • George Griffith
... eighty-three and a half carats, valued at 15,000l. In 1868 many enterprising colonists made their way up the Vaal River, and were successful in finding a good number of diamonds. The center of the river diggings on the Transvaal side was Klipdrift, and on the opposite side Pniel. In all there were fourteen river diggings. Du Toit's Pan and Bultfontein mines were discovered in 1870 at a distance of twenty-four miles from the ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 392, July 7, 1883 • Various
... The "Hinksey diggings," as they were humorously called, were taken up with an enthusiasm which burned so fiercely that it soon expended itself, and its last flickering embers were soon extinguished by the ironic chaff and banter to which these ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... the gold fever was running high in Australia, and each colony was eager to discover new diggings within its borders. Robert Austin, Assistant Surveyor-General of Western Australia, was instructed to take charge of an inland exploring party to search for pastoral country, and to examine the interior ...
— The Explorers of Australia and their Life-work • Ernest Favenc
... order that when the wall settled they might rush in through the breach thus made. The Carthaginians then built counter-tunnels and came upon many workers who were unaware of what the other side was doing. These they killed, and also destroyed many by hurling blazing firewood into the diggings. Some of the allies now, burdened by the strain of the siege and displeased because their superiors did not come down with their full wages, made propositions to the Romans to betray the place. Hamilcar discovered ...
— Dio's Rome, Volume 1 (of 6) • Cassius Dio
... all told in years. He stayed at home instead of going to the club or the theatre or to stupid dinner parties. He hadn't the faintest idea that a place where a fellow did nothing but sleep and eat bacon and eggs could be looked upon as a "home." He had thought of it only as an apartment, or "diggings." Now he loved his home and everything that was in it. How he would miss the stealthy blue linen nurses, and the expressionless doctors, and the odour of broths and soups, and the scent of roses, and the swish of petticoats, and the elevating presence of pretty women, and the fragrance ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon
... attack, under Commander Stickles—for the sake of his secret gold mine—yet now he was in a position to give full vent to his feelings. For he and his partners when fully-assured of the value of their diggings, had obtained from the Crown a licence to adventure in search of minerals, by payment of a heavy fine and a yearly royalty. Therefore they had now no longer any cause for secrecy, neither for dread of the outlaws; having ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... follow him; and by the time I had studied your diggings here a trifle, things began to happen below. It sounded like a St. Patrick’s Day celebration in an Irish village, and I went down at a gallop to see if there was any chance of breaking in. Have you seen the room? Well,”—he gave ...
— The House of a Thousand Candles • Meredith Nicholson
... ship now was all navigable water among the floes, and the sight of him so visibly near put into me such a shivering eagerness, that I was nothing else but a madman for the time, sending the kayak flying with venomous digs in quick-repeated spurts, and mixing with the diggings my crazy wavings, and with both the daft shoutings of 'Hallo! Hi! Bravo! I have been ...
— The Purple Cloud • M.P. Shiel
... prospecting, and on Bonanzo Creek, a tributary of the Klondike, was surprised and overjoyed to find gold in a profusion never before dreamed of in the Alaskan region. The news of the find spread rapidly through Alaska and before winter set in the old diggings were largely deserted, a swarm of eager miners poured into the Klondike region, and the frozen earth was torn and rent in their eagerness to reach ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 1 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... '60's at the diggings. I was a young chap then, hot-blooded and reckless, ready to turn my hand at anything; I got among bad companions, took to drink, had no luck with my claim, took to the bush, and in a word became what ...
— The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... he set out from his "diggings" in New York without having the remotest idea where his peregrinations would carry him. It was his habit to select a starting point in advance, approach that spot by train or ship or motor, and then divest himself of all purpose except to ...
— Green Fancy • George Barr McCutcheon
... outflowing of these children of art from one common primeval Indian stock. From one fraternity, in Italy, at the present day, those itinerant pests, the hand-organ players, proceed to the ends of the earth and to the gold-diggings thereof, and time will yet show that before all time, or in its early dawn, there were root-born Romany itinerants singing, piping, and dancing unto all the known world; yea, and into the unknown ...
— The Gypsies • Charles G. Leland
... Brussels, but when we are away there is no place on earth so dear to us, for it is 'home.' But there!" he laughed, "I'm actually growing romantic. Ah! if we could only find Muriel! But we must to-morrow. Ta-ta! I shall go around to the club and sleep, for I haven't fixed on any diggings yet. Come in at ten to-morrow, and we will decide upon some plan. One thing is plainly certain; Elma must at once be got out of Russia. She's in deadly ...
— The Czar's Spy - The Mystery of a Silent Love • William Le Queux
... dear, That things would be different if Robert was here; I guess he'd a stayed but for Archibald Grace. And helped with the chores and looked after the place; But Archie, he heard from that Eben Carew, And went wild to go off to the gold-diggings, too; And so they must up and meander out West, And now they are murdered—or missing, at best— Surprised by that bloody, marauding "Red Wing," 'Way out in the ...
— The Poets and Poetry of Cecil County, Maryland • Various
... took a long walk, and reconnoitred the diggings on both sides of Bendigo creek. Toward the middle of the afternoon they came upon a thin, melancholy looking young man, who was sitting in a despondent ...
— In A New World - or, Among The Gold Fields Of Australia • Horatio Alger
... Strait. Their state of California is still resorted to by the Chinese, who now number 50,000 in their new country, and conduct themselves as orderly and industrious citizens. There is some talk of introducing tea-culture, for the sake of giving them employment, as their presence at the diggings is scarcely tolerated. We are soon to know more than at present of the geography and people of Borneo, for Madame Ida Pfeiffer has travelled further into that country than any other European, and is preparing a narrative of her adventures. Nearer home, Lieutenant ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 461 - Volume 18, New Series, October 30, 1852 • Various
... was. Nunez had not erred in his estimate of the productiveness of the mines; the newly opened gold-diggings soon yielded some ...
— Freeland - A Social Anticipation • Theodor Hertzka
... There are no "diggings" in American cities. The alternatives for small incomes are grim enough—rooms in a boarding-house where meals are served, or in a room-house where no meals are served—not even breakfast. Rich people live in palaces, of course, but Jim had nothing to do with "sich-like." ...
— The Empty House And Other Ghost Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... at our diggings. Nobody liked him, or trusted him. He was too lazy to work, but just loafed around, complaining of his luck. One night I caught him in my tent, just going to rob me. I warned him to leave the camp next day or I'd report him, and the boys would have strung him up. That's ...
— Joe's Luck - Always Wide Awake • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... going to dig for gold," Prudence answered, as they started again. "Hugh says there is gold in the river-bed. The boys dig, and we sift the diggings in this cradle, which rocks in the water so that all the dirt runs out and the gold stays in—at least, it would if there were any to stay. Last year we dug for ever so long, but never got any gold at all. We found some ...
— The Happy Adventurers • Lydia Miller Middleton
... sides from the mountain of gold. Many in every class, who are at ease in their circumstances, and would fain have things remain as they are, look with dislike on a state of things so new, and wish that the 'diggings' in California, and the gold region of Australia, had never been disturbed ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 449 - Volume 18, New Series, August 7, 1852 • Various
... stature and majestical white blossoms,—to the same lofty and pure beauty. Will you not believe it, merely because that bog-bred youth you placed in the mud-hole tells you lies, and drinks to cheer himself in those endless diggings? You are short-sighted, my friend; you do not look to the future; you will not turn your head to see what may have been the influences of the past. You have not examined your own breast to see whether ...
— Woman in the Ninteenth Century - and Kindred Papers Relating to the Sphere, Condition - and Duties, of Woman. • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... "soundings," or "diggings," are many and deep; But would that his "three-hundred fathoms" he'd keep, Below in the ocean's cold quiet. But no, not at all; he's not that sort of whale! He must breathe, he must blow, he must roar, till the gale Is charged with the ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, July 23, 1892 • Various
... in New York two weeks from today, the 24th. Of course I shall go to my old diggings. Telephone me there, so that I can see you as soon as possible. I am looking forward to a real dinner, at a real restaurant, with the realest girl in the world opposite me the first day I strike New York, so get ready ...
— Revelations of a Wife - The Story of a Honeymoon • Adele Garrison
... enough cattle to kill, so that we could manage to subsist on these provisions. We had long since dispensed with tents, but the rains in the mountain regions of Pilgrim's Rest and the Sabi had compelled us to find the burghers shelter. At the alluvial diggings at Pilgrim's Rest we found a great quantity of galvanized iron plates and deals, which, when cut into smaller pieces, could be used for building. We found a convenient spot in the mountains between Pilgrim's Rest and Kruger's Post, where some hundreds of iron or zinc ...
— My Reminiscences of the Anglo-Boer War • Ben Viljoen
... murdered and stole the Easter Islanders. Just before we took hold there, a gang of blackbirders from Peru went there and killed and took away many hundreds of them. They sold them to the guano diggings in the Chincha Islands. Only those escaped death or capture who hid in the dark caverns. Nearly all those taken away died soon. We then made contracts with some of those left, and took them to Tahiti to work. It is true they died, too, most of ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien
... the French Company became greatly alarmed at the prospect of losing the sum which the United States had agreed to pay for its rights and diggings, and it took steps to avert this total loss. The most natural means which occurred to it, the means which it adopted, was to incite a revolution in the State of Panama. To understand the affair ...
— Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography, • William Roscoe Thayer
... fair lake-like lagoons of that district, eat of the fish from them; for they made a kind of gypsey expedition, camping out and providing for themselves fascinatingly; and finally returned in the steamer from Wollongong to Sydney. Her friends would have taken her to see the gold diggings if it had been possible. But Eleanor saw it all, all they could shew her, with half a heart. She had learned long ago to conceal ...
— The Old Helmet, Volume II • Susan Warner
... gentlemen descend to tell us how we are to separate the "spiritual" gold which faintly streaks the huge mass of impure ore of fable, legend, and mysticism. Each man, it seems has his own particular spade and mattock in his "spiritual faculty"; so off with you to the diggings in these spiritual mines of Ophir. You will say, Why not stay at home, and be content at once, with the advocates of the absolute sufficiency of the internal oracle, listen to its responses exclusively? Ask these men—for I am sure I do not know; I only know that the ...
— The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers
... named this Peake Creek, after C.J. Peake, Esquire, M.L.A. After crossing this, we travelled over low rises with quartz, ironstone, and slate; the quartz predominating. Herrgott and Muller, who have both been long in the Victoria gold diggings, say that they have not seen any place that resembles those diggings so much as this does. The country seems as if it were covered with snow, from the quantity of quartz. At eleven miles passed a brackish water creek ...
— Explorations in Australia, The Journals of John McDouall Stuart • John McDouall Stuart
... along places where a horse from the plains wouldn't dare move. Then you will want rifles and six-shooters. That is about all; I am afraid our stock of money will hardly run to it, and I think we had better work for a while in one of the diggings to make up ...
— The Golden Canyon - Contents: The Golden Canyon; The Stone Chest • G. A. Henty
... particular, such as the Welcome Nugget, 184 lbs. 9 oz.; the Welcome Stranger, a surface nugget, 190 lbs. after smelting; the Braidwood specimen nugget, 350 lbs., two-thirds gold; besides many other large masses of almost virgin gold which have been obtained from time to time in the alluvial diggings." ...
— Getting Gold • J. C. F. Johnson
... ability marked him out as the heaven-sent manager. Stephen accepted the proposals, gave up his London business, and set to work with energy. Coal was found, it is said, 'though of too sulphureous a kind for use;' but deeper diggings would, no doubt, lay bare a superior seam. After a year or two, however, affairs began to look black; Sir John Webbe became cool and then fell out with his manager; and the result was that, about 1769, James Stephen found himself confined for debt ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... believes, so it behaves. Such as his Gods are, such will the man be; down to that lowest point which too many of the Chinese seem to have reached, where, having no Gods, he himself becomes no man; but (as I hear you see him at the Australian diggings) abhorred for his foul crimes even by the scum ...
— The Roman and the Teuton - A Series of Lectures delivered before the University of Cambridge • Charles Kingsley
... River. There are abundant indications that larger and more substantial buildings will rapidly be substituted for the provisional structures of which Cooktown at present consists. The population is about 2,500. The Palmer River gold-diggings, and some recent discoveries of tin, which have attracted a large number of miners, are the chief sources of prosperity. A railway will shortly connect Cooktown with the gold-mines. A section of thirty-two miles has been already opened. It was a delicious day, and I enjoyed ...
— The Last Voyage - to India and Australia, in the 'Sunbeam' • Lady (Annie Allnutt) Brassey
... nugget I wear on my watch-chain, steward? I could not afford it at that time, but I talked golden instead, California gold, nuggets and nuggets, oodles and oodles, from the diggings of forty-nine and fifty. That was literary. That was colour. Later, after my first voyage out of Boston I was financially able to buy a nugget. It was so much bait to which men rose like fishes. And like fishes they nibbled. These rings, also—bait. You ...
— Michael, Brother of Jerry • Jack London
... this, in what Golconda does the insect gather its gems? In what diggings does it find its gold nuggets? What a pretty problem is that of a Buprestis' wing-case! Here the chemistry of colours ought to reap a delightful harvest; but the difficulties are great, it seems, so much so that science cannot yet tell us the why and the wherefore of the humblest costume. ...
— The Glow-Worm and Other Beetles • Jean Henri Fabre
... the foundations of buildings, timbers are found of wrought beams and already black. Such were found in my time in those diggings at Castel Fiorentino. And these had been in that deep place before the sand carried by the Arno into the sea, then covering the plain, had heen raised to such a height; and before the plains of Casentino had been so much lowered, ...
— The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Complete • Leonardo Da Vinci
... revelation he made to me in Aunt Mary's garret; but he had no time, and perhaps no inclination, to enter into details. He just said, "I'm off, and I hope everything will go well. I shall get back to my 'diggings,' and see you either at Awepesha or Kidd's Pines the minute I can ...
— The Lightning Conductor Discovers America • C. N. (Charles Norris) Williamson and A. M. (Alice Muriel)
... 'But I would be squatting on my diggings with a shot-gun under my arm. Al, here, can tell you a few things about Monte Devine ...
— The Desert Valley • Jackson Gregory
... you. Not until I hear the reports of my men, and the messenger or scout whom I looked for to meet us here at noon. Seen. anything of that rattler around these diggings, Professor?" ...
— The Pony Rider Boys with the Texas Rangers • Frank Gee Patchin
... grubbers, roughing-and- tumbling it in the scramble for gold mites, with no quiet Sabbath breaks, nor Sabbath songs, nor Sabbath bells to measure off and sweeten a season of rest. Well, the poor widow, who had her cabin within a few miles of "the diggings," brought with her but few comforts from the old homeland—a few simple articles of furniture, the bible and psalm-book of her youth, and an English lark to sing to her solitude the songs that had cheered her on the other side of the globe. And the little thing did it with all ...
— A Walk from London to John O'Groat's • Elihu Burritt
... clapboards. Here also we were shown many specimens of gold, of a coarser grain than that found at Mormon Island. The next day we crossed the American River to its north side, and visited many small camps of men, in what were called the "dry diggings." Little pools of water stood in the beds of the streams, and these were used to wash the dirt; and there the gold was in every conceivable shape and size, some of the specimens weighing several ounces. Some of these "diggings" were extremely rich, but as a whole they were ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman
... Yule at Palermo, deeply interested in Scylla and Charybdis, Etna and the metopes of Selinus. His interest in Greek art had been shown, not only in a course of lectures, but in active support to archaeological explorations. He said once, "I believe heartily in diggings, of all sorts." Meeting General L.P. di Cesnola and hearing of the wealth of ancient remains in Cyprus then newly discovered, Mr. Ruskin placed L1,000 at his disposal. General di Cesnola was able, in April, 1875, to announce that in spite of the confiscation ...
— The Life of John Ruskin • W. G. Collingwood
... and drought. We (seven and the driver) were packed away in an open three-seated wagon with four horses, and drove over the dreariest road one can imagine. We passed continually places where the ground was all upturned, evidently either worked-out or abandoned gold-diggings. It was very pathetic when one thought of the work, time, and hopes wasted there. At twelve o'clock we reached Hunter's (the name of the hotel), and then we drove over more dismal plains still to a hotel called Clark's. It must originally ...
— The Sunny Side of Diplomatic Life, 1875-1912 • Lillie DeHegermann-Lindencrone
... little red lips tightly. The handsome outlines at the windows peered further in the schoolroom, and a saintly Raphael face, with blond beard and soft blue eyes, belonging to the biggest scamp in the diggings, turned toward the child and whispered, "Stick to it, Mliss!" The reverend gentleman heaved a deep sigh, and cast a compassionate glance at the master, then at the children, and then rested his look on Clytie. That young woman softly elevated her round, ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... said Dick, "it leads right straight to my little diggings. If Edith throws her out, I'll ...
— New Faces • Myra Kelly
... was a Frenchman, who had been in the Southwest at least since 1832, when he visited the Pima villages and Casa Grande. In 1862, while trapping, he was one of the discoverers of the La Paz gold diggings. The following year he was with the Peeples party that found gold on Rich Hill, in central Arizona. Thereafter he was an army scout. He died at Camp Verde ...
— Mormon Settlement in Arizona • James H. McClintock
... have been accidentally discovered in digging the numerous water-courses in the vicinity; there is, however, no doubt that at some former period the east end of the plain, called the "Vale of Rubies," constituted the royal "diggings." That the king of Kandy did not reside at Newera Ellia there is little wonder, as a monarch delighting in a temperature of 85 Fahrenheit would have regarded the climate of a mean temperature of 60 Fahrenheit as we should that ...
— Eight Years' Wandering in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... vessel being unable to proceed further than Rio de Janeiro, he there procured a situation, with an annual salary of L300. The climate of Rio proving unfavourable, he afterwards sailed to Australia, where he readily found occupation at Mount Alexander. He has been successful at the gold diggings. ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... with the Hon. R. Curzon's belief in Central African "diggings." The traveller once saw an individual descending the Nile with a store of nuggets, bracelets, and gold rings similar to those used as ...
— First footsteps in East Africa • Richard F. Burton
... to join that Legion, and as for Kaspar (a name by which we knew his brother Edmond, afterwards triumvir at Merv), he was sure to turn up. Mother Carey's chicken hovers near when the elements are at strife. He was immensely satisfied with his diggings, he said, liked the natives, and considered this a splendid chance for improving his Spanish. He was reading "Don Quixote" in the vernacular. In a sense, I looked upon his presence as a perfect godsend to us, as he came in most appropriately as a Deus ex machina to create ...
— Romantic Spain - A Record of Personal Experiences (Vol. II) • John Augustus O'Shea
... much invaluable matter, that lies scattered, like jewels among quarry-rubbish, in those Paper-catacombs we may have occasion to glance back, and somewhat will demand insertion at the right place: meanwhile be our tiresome diggings therein suspended. ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... being dropped on to that we used to do. The whole country was full of absconders and deserters, servants, shepherds, shopmen, soldiers, and sailors—all running away from their work, and making in a blind sort of way for the diggings, like a lot of ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood
... seem to make, out here, the kind of jails that will keep Del Pinzo behind the bars," commented Nort. "If he's around these diggings he'd be the very one to engineer ...
— The Boy Ranchers in Death Valley - or Diamond X and the Poison Mystery • Willard F. Baker
... mine. The shafts, rude diggings, pierced the cliffs on both sides, like so many caves. The bottom between the cliffs was bisected by a rivulet ...
— The Scalp Hunters • Mayne Reid
... Victorian public to develop their own wonderful resources. When you take gold out of the ground there is less gold to win. When you grow golden grain or ruddy grapes this year you may expect as much and as good next year. My brother David went with the thousands to buy their fortunes at the diggings, but my brother John stuck to the Bank of South Australia. My brother-in-law's subscribers and his printers had gone off and left him woefully embarrassed. He went to Melbourne. My friend John Taylor left his sheep in ...
— An Autobiography • Catherine Helen Spence |
