GOLD FIELD IN THIBET.

Grey River Argus, Volume XI, Issue 945, 7 August 1871, Page 3

GOLD FIELD IN THIBET.

The Thibetan Gold Field of ThokJalung, in latitude 32.24.26 and longitude 81.37.38, has been visited by a corps of scientific English explorers, who have just published an account of their observations. The diggers prefer to work in the winter, when nearly six hundred tent are to be found there; the soil when frozen does not "cave in." They have no weod, but use dried dung for fuel, and the water is so brackish as to be undrinkable until frozen and remelted. They live well, taking three meals a day of boiled meat, barley cakes, and tea stewed with butter. The gold is obtained from from an excavation a mile long, twentyfive feet deep, and ten to two hundred paces wide, through which a small stream runs ; the implements used are alonghandled kind of spade and an iron hoe. The water is dammed up, and. a sloping channel left; at the bottom a cloth is spread, kept down by stones so as to make the bottom uneven ; one man sprinkles the auriferous earth over the channel, and another flushes the channel by means of a leather bag. The pieces of gold fall into the inequalities and are easily collected in the cloth by lifting up the stones. The yield is large— nuggets of two pounds weight are found ; the gold sells on the spot at rather less than thirty rupees per ounce. A gold commissioner or " sarpou" superintends all the gold fields, a string of which extends along the northern watershed of the Brahmaputra, from Lhasa to Rudok. Each field has a chief for master, but any one may dig who pays the annual license fee of one sarapoo or two-fifths of an ounce. TRe curious posture for sleeping, universal among the Thibetans, was observed here. They invariably draw their knees close up to their heads, and rest on their knees and elbows, huddling every scrap of clothing they can muster on their backs ; the richer rest thus on a mattrass rising towards the head. The poorer avail themselves of a suitable slope on the hill side, or pile stones and earth to a convenient height. This position is most probably adopted in order to secure as much warmth as possible for the abdomen, the thighs pressing against it and excluding: the air. The gold-diggsrs recreate themselves with tobacco smoked in iron pipes, and, notwithstanding the hardships of their laborious toil, seem very merry, singing songs in chorus, in which the women and children join.