I FOLLOWED GOLD By E. C. Trelawney-Ansell
The author of this book (Davies, 8s. 6d.), easily one of the best of its kind, is getting on for seventy and took part in all the big gold rushes in the Transvaal, Klondyke, Yukon and Nevada. His life was typical of many another gold-seeker : he found gold, squandered it, found more, became a millionaire, speculated and crashed, without losing his courage or his love of the rough life of mining camps. It was the excitement of discovery rather than the desire for wealth that kept them going over the veldt or the Klondyke trail and enduring the almost unbelievable hardships of working a claim. Only the toughest reached the camps in thoSe. days, -arid There cannot be many, with as vivid a memory of them at. Mr. Ansell, who could write it all down as well as he has done. Some of our contemporary would-be-tough authors might have a look at this book. It is true there are a few overdone purple patches but the facts are here, and his accounts of life in mushroom cities like Dawson and their population of miners, murderers, prostitutes and gamblers are at their best of permanent historical value and at their worst of absorbing interest.
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