The swampy nature of the soil rendered the digging impossible without the aid of powerful pumps to reduce the water, which filled the shaft so rapidly that no greater depth could be obtained than eighteen feet, and even this at immense labor.
The diggers were absolutely penniless, and but for assistance received from private parties they must have starved.

The rainy season was at its height, and torrents fell night and day with little intermission.
Still, these poor little fellows worked early and late, wet and dry, ever sanguine of success, and they at length petitioned the Government to give them the means of subsistence for a few months--"subsistence" for two men, and the assistance of a few coolies.

This was refused, and the reply stated that the government intended to leave the search for gold to "private enterprise." No reward was offered for its discovery as in other colonies, but the governor would leave it to "private enterprise." A promising enterprise truly, when every landholder in Ceylon, on referring to his title-deeds, observes the reservation of all precious metals to the crown.

This is a fair sample of the narrow-minded, selfish policy of a government which, in endeavoring to save a little, loses all; a miserable tampering with the public in attempting to make a cat's paw of private enterprise.
How has this ended?
The diggers left the island in disgust.

If the gold is there in quantity, there in quantity it remains to the present time, unsought for.