midnight on Saturday
The building which covered the antiquated five-stamper battery , boiler , engine , and tanks , was merely a huge roof of bark supported on untrimmed posts of brigalow and swamp gum , but rude as was the structure , the miners at Chinkie 's Flat , and other camps in the vicinity , had once been distinctly proud of their battery , which possessed the high-sounding title of `` The Ever Victorious , '' and had achieved fame by having in the `` good times '' of the Flat yielded a certain Peter Finnerty two thousand ounces of gold from a hundred tons of alluvial . The then owner of the battery was an intelligent , but bibulous ex-marine engineer , who had served with Gordon in China , and when he erected the structure he formally christened it `` The Ever Victorious , '' in memory of Gordon 's army , which stamped out the Taeping rebellion . The first crushing put through was Finnerty 's , and when the `` clean-up '' was over , and the hundreds of silvery balls of amalgam placed in the retorts turned out over one hundred and sixty-six pounds ' weight of bright yellow gold , Chinkie 's Flat went wild with excitement and spirituous refreshment . In less than three months there were over five hundred diggers on the field , and the `` Ever Victorious '' banged and pounded away night and day , the rattle and clang of the stamps only ceasing at midnight on Saturday , and remaining silent till midnight on Sunday , the Sabbath being devoted `` to cleaning-up , '' retorting the amalgam , and overhauling and repairing the machinery , and for relaxation , organising riding parties of twenty or thirty , and chasing Chinamen , of whom there were over three hundred within a radius of twenty miles . The rich alluvial of Chinkie 's Flat had , as a matter of fact , been first discovered by a number of Chinese diggers , who were each getting from five to ten ounces of gold per day , when they were discovered by the aforesaid Peter Finnerty , who was out prospecting with a couple of mates . Their indignation that a lot of heathen `` Chows '' should be scooping up gold so easily , while they , Christians and legitimate miners , should be toiling over the barren ridges day after day without striking anything , was so great that for the moment , as they sat on their horses and viewed the swarming Chinese working their cradles on the bank of the creek , the power of speech deserted them . Hastily turning their tired horses ' heads , they rode as hard as they could to the nearest mining camp , and on the following day thirty hairy-faced foreign-devils came charging into the Chinese camp , uttering fearful threats , and shooting right and left -LRB- with blank cartridges -RRB- .