In Search Of The Precious Stone

Albert Ramsay (Albert Ramsay & Co, 1925) writes:

The camp at Lightning Ridge consisted of a group of tents and a few shacks. Accommodations were of the crudest sort and I established my headquarters in a tent, shared with a miner. While at Walgett I had heard tales of numerous holdups and not caring to augment the natural dangers of a trip through the bush by the risk of robbery, I deposited the large sum of cash I had brought from Sydney in the town’s single bank. As a result of that decision I was the first man to pay by check at the Lightning Ridge mines. Commercial missionaries have their troubles as well do religious ones. An amusing incident in connection with my transaction will serve to illustrate the point.

Having selected a considerable parcel of opals I tendered the miner from whom I was purchasing them a check in payment. He examined it skeptically and it was after I had nearly exhausted my patience and vocabulary that he could be persuaded to accept it in lieu of cash. A group of miners who had witnessed the scene while waiting to deal with me lost interest immediately when they saw that their companion had received a slip of paper for his opals instead of currency. Neither argument not pleading availed. They were adamant, and it was not until two days later, after one of their number had gone to Walgett and verified my statements, that I was able to procure any more stones.

While at Lightning Ridge I had an experience which I never recall without a flutter. One day I decided to go shooting. I deemed it advisable to work toward the west in order that I might have the setting sun on my back as a guide during the return trip but the miner whose tent i was sharing suggested another route as being more likely to afford me a shot at a kangaroo. I followed his advice and was rewarded by the promised kangaroo and some rabbits. I was getting late and if I was to avoid being overtaken by nightfall it was imperative that I start back. Whether I was excited over my first kangaroo or whether I was too engrossed in the beauty surrounding me I do not know, but at any rate I forgot that I had altered my original intention, and proceeded away from the sun. After trudging for a long time without encountering any familiar objects the realization that I was ‘bushed’ burst upon me—in other words, I was lost in the tangled brush with darkness fast approaching. Through some psychological phenomenon it seems that in a crisis we are reminded of the most unpleasant things in connection with our particular predicament. My case was no exception and I recalled in vivid detail the story of a miner who had been ‘bushed’ the week previous and was found dead from thirst forty miles from camp. The thought of the poor chap’s fate and the excruciating torture which must have preceded it, filled me with panic and I immediately became obsessed by a mad desire for water, as commonly occurs when men realize that they are ‘bushed’. Wandering in circles, momentarily suffering more and more from thirst, I plucked handfulls of grass which I chewed in an attempt to allay my anguish. Exhausted, mentally and physically, I was about to lie down when I heard the faint tinkle of a bell. This imbued me with fresh courage and I set out to locate the source of the sound. At nine o’clock, scratched and bleeding from the briars, I stumbled upon a horse with a bell around the neck. Never before had the sight of a horse been so welcome for his presence might portend the proximity of human habitation or, things came to the worst,men had lived on horseflesh. Darkness had spread its ebon all over the wilderness and I decided to camp where I was until daybreak. Night birds called to their mates and my active imagination filled the brush with the forms of prowling beasts. As a result I was unable to sleep and in that, fate was kind to me, for about midnight the penetrating tones of an Australian ‘coo-ee’ were borne to me upon the wings of the night breeze. I fired my rifle in response and the horse bolted, but fortunately my signal had been heard and finally a black tracker appeared. My tentmate, worried over my failure to return, had spread the alarm and as a result four hundred miners set out to beat the brush in search of me. We reached camp early next morning. Perhaps it is base ingratitude to question the motives of my rescuers but I have since debated whether their solicitude for my welfare was not prompted more through the fear of losing a good customer than it was through any spirit of brotherly love.

During my two weeks stay I purchased about $50000 worth of rough stones. The return journey to Walgett was negotiated without mishap, riding at night, under the protection of an armed escort.

The fact that I had been fortunate beyond my fondest hopes in obtaining such wonderful specimens of opals whetted my desire to continue the search and I accordingly decided to proceed to Siam in quest of sapphires. As steamer ploughed northwestward across the Indian Ocean, the sea was an ever changing marvel of beauty. It resembled a huge casket, into which the jewels had been cast in promiscuous disarray. Jade and sapphire, turquoise and emerald, aquamarine and amethyst—all were inseparably mixed by nature’s magic hand. Schools of flying fish emerged, glided through the air for a brief moment, and then, with a splash that rippled the ocean’s calm surface, were gone into the depths from whence they had come. Porpoises, their backs as sleek and shiny as velvet, sported about the bow of the ship.

In Search Of The Precious Stone (continued)