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 Another Random Document on
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 A few days after the change took place, a drove of fat cattle,
about twenty in number, and the first of our killing stock, arrived
under charge of two horsemen from some distant station. Calved
and reared at large in the open bush, they were just wild enough to
fly either from or at a man on foot, but at the same time so
innocently stupid, that a man on horseback might ride in and out
amongst them if he but kept quiet, their distinction between friend
and foe being apparently ruled by the number of his legs. The
animals were too tired to make the first yarding of them difficult. On
the following morning, however, when assisting to enclose a few of
them in the slaughtering pen, I was made to fear that here might lie
the end of my strange pilgrimage. The main yard was about thirty
yards square; the twenty bullocks gathered close together about the
centre, snorting and pawing the ground as we mounted the high
rails and dropped inside. Refreshed by their night’s rest, and nimble
with hunger, they rushed about seeking some way of escape, now
and again crowding into the railed passage leading to the
slaughtering floor, which served as an intermediate yard, with slip
rails for barring it from the main enclosure, when we had got the
animals we wanted in. A rush was made to these slip rails as often
as this happened, but as often, for close upon two hours were they
hurled from our hands in the act of placing them. The courage and
temper of the superintendent were much tried; once I saw him fight
his way singly from behind through the angry herd, to help the men
who were trying, but again in vain, to close the passage. As the now
infuriated beasts ran at us with lowered heads, I was too busy
making my own escape to see how his was made, but I heard some
cracks given on a dull sounding body, and seeing him from my perch
on the top rail a few minutes after still on the ground, with a light
stake in his hand, I felt encouraged next time not to run so readily,
and by a little careful observation was bye and bye enabled to
distinguish signs of mischief in the animals from those merely of
alarm. By what rule I judged I could not say, but believe the process
was much the same as when interpreting the expression of a human
face. Once, however, I presumed a little too much on my
discernment, and had only time to get upon the top rail with one leg
over, when the animal sprang up, and it and rail and I were thrown
sprawling on the ground outside. As it did not on the instant run
away, I did, as well as a stunned leg would let me.
The weight of the bodies when killed and dressed ranged from
eight to eleven hundred weight, and it fell to me as cartman to carry
the quarters as they were cut, from the sling bar to the cart, no light
task to one who had yet to learn the art of balancing a yielding mass
upon my shoulders, and who trusted only in the stiffness of his back.
I only dropped one quarter the whole time I was employed in
carrying, about six months, but that one was the first I attempted,
and unfortunately it fell in the mud. On the second morning after
breakfast, the superintendent desired me to make ready to ride the
cattle out for a few hours’ feeding. It was not for me to say No, but I
told him I had not practised any other riding than in a cart, and that
I was doubtful he would lose his stock. He poohed at my scruples,
saddled a small brown horse that had a character for sobriety and
slowness, and mounting it himself, rode after the uncaged animals in
their first rush to the water. When they had quenched their thirst, he
headed them round to where I stood waiting under cover of a bush,
but before I could take his place, they had gone off at a run, and
there was nothing for it but to beat them in the race. Never, I
thought, had horse flown as mine now did, over holes and stumps
with flying leaps, his head erect, and his ears laid back, as if he
knew his work, and expected I knew mine. After galloping thus
about a mile, we got in front, but could not stop the herd; half a
mile more, but still they ran. I was beginning to be alarmed, for they
minded me no more than they would one of themselves. At the end
of the third mile, however, their pace began to slacken, and shortly
after, on reaching a fine grassy bottom, they commenced to feed. It
had taken us but a short time to come this distance, but I doubted
the like expedition in the return, and consequently got into the
saddle again shortly after mid-day to begin it. I had a stock whip
with me, the lash of which was about fifteen feet in length, attached
to a handle shorter and smaller than a policeman’s baton. I had felt
quite unable to use it in the morning’s run, but now made bold to
try. Throwing the lash out from me, and describing a large oval in
the air with the handle end, finishing with a jerk as I had seen the
drovers do, I thought to make some of the brown hides smart, but a
swing of the tail round to the part touched, was for a while the only
answer the phlegmatic brutes would give me, and having to stop the
horse at every such attempt, thereby losing much more than was
gained, I broke a branch from a tree and rode at them with it
determined to bring the matter to an issue one way or another, but
on raising it to strike, the horse mistook my intention and shied,
nearly throwing me to the ground. I durst not repeat the
experiment, but as something had to be done, resumed the whip,
and now swinging it round my head, produced after many trials a
soft twiney crack, that made my heart leap for very joy, seeing it
made the creatures prick their ears, and snuff the wind. The horse
stood quiet while I practised, meekly winking his eyes, and
appearing to take no offence even when, as often happened, I got
the lash entangled about his legs. At last I made a crack that rang
like a gun-shot through the woods, and then another. The herd
came walking as to a centre; I pricked the horse forward, shouted,
and while they were yet on the move, got them headed for home,
and giving them no rest, we reached a ridge about half a mile from
the yard, with the sun yet a good hour high. But here the
superintendent met me mounted on a tall grey horse without saddle.
He was out in search of another of the horses that had gone
amissing. Seeing me so near home, and all going well, he set me on
the bare back of the old horse he had come on, and rode away upon
the other. My new seat had a projecting back bone running down
the middle, I made the best use I could of my knees to bear my
weight, and might thus have saved myself from damage, but just as
the yard came into view two diggers on foot appeared. Foreboding
mischief I shouted and waved to them to keep away, but they did
not understand or would not. The herd caught sight of them, and
ran off at a swinging trot across the creek and away up into hilly
ground. My knees could no longer support my weight, which at
every leap the horse took, came down with cruel effect upon the
ridge board I sat astride of. The men jeered and laughed, whistled,
and called “Joe, Joe,” after me until I was lost to hearing. Darkness
was fast approaching, and I was beginning to despair about my
work, when the superintendent came riding up, and with a few
cracks of the whip, quickly made the animals close their ranks, the
rearmost crowding to reach the front, and all at the top of their
speed to get out of reach of his anger. I had a tale to tell on
reaching the hut, but did not tell it, though Tom next day let me
know in confidence that a plaister of pipe clay was the finest
substitute he knew for lost skin.
Next morning at daybreak I was sent with a saddle on my
shoulders to bring home the missing horse from the stock yard of an
out station about four miles higher up the creek, and in due time
was mounted and making my way slowly back along the road.
Becoming a little more confident in my seat when about half way
home, I applied my single spur with the lightest of touches, and
received in return a whisk of the tail across my back. The reply made
me hold some little consultation with myself. The animal had turned
his head slightly round as if to see what the matter was; his ears
seemed fidgetty, and I wondered what that signified, but the pace
becoming slower and slower until it came to a dead stop, there was
no alternative but to use my armed heel as before. The hinder parts
rose on the instant and I was nearly thrown. I was glad to make
peace on any terms, and “woed” him quiet. We could not remain
standing still however; I geehupped and chirked with my mouth in
the style of my predecessor the cartman, but all in vain, until by
slapping him with the end of the bridle on the neck, I got him urged
forward to where a tree dropped its branches within my reach. I was
becoming angry, and might have to ride him often yet before leaving
the neighbourhood. Having heard it said, that according as the will
of the man or of the horse ruled at the first acquaintance, so was it
likely to be afterwards, a now-or-never impulse overrode my fear,
and armed me for the battle. He stood peaceably looking back at me
as I wrenched a branch off. Giving him one hearty whack with it
behind, he winced and shook my feet out of the stirrups, and went
off at a hard gallop which was never slackened till I drew him up at
the hut door. My face felt rather flushed, and the horse was blowing.
The superintendent came out and asked if I had not more sense
than to ride a grass-fed horse at that rate. Feeling that sense had
very little to do with the matter, I would have justified myself had
not Tom at the moment clapped me on the back, and said with a
singular grin upon his honest face that I had a very devil in me, if I
but knew it. The character suggested in the remark being likely to be
more serviceable under existing circumstances than the other that
would have been assumed in telling the plain story, I held my peace,
but shortly afterwards ascertained from Tom that a horse that has
been accustomed only to a riding switch, is apt to misunderstand the
meaning of a spur. The adventure seemed to have rid me of my fear.
Duty became a pleasure to me when I could perform it in the saddle.
The ranges were no longer hills of difficulty when other legs than my
own were bearing the fatigue. The risk of losing the direction in
which the hut lay ceased to be a matter of anxiety, when I had the
unfailing instinct of my dumb companion to rely on, though once
that instinct played me false, by bearing me to the home station at
the Amphitheatre, when I meant returning to the slaughter-yard.
Night came on shortly after I had slacked the rein to him, and in the
darkness I failed to recognise the road that we had struck on until
too late. Much hard work previously at the slaughter-yard had, no
doubt, much to do with this visit on which he took me to the place
where he had been foaled and reared.
Our old cook left, and in his room there came a young man newly
arrived from Scotland, whose christian name was David. It took but
little time for us to discover in each other kindred sympathies and
habits. It was like finding a green place in the desert. Had we been
Frenchmen, we might have kissed, and sworn life-long brotherhood,
but being creatures of less impulse we merely “hung our harps upon
the willows” and mourned over departed joys, and the small
prospect at present of meeting new ones. He had been at college,
with a view to becoming a minister, but something which he could
not well explain had unsettled him, and sent him—here. He talked of
books, and was yet so full of the school, that he was often on the
floor reciting passages from the classic authors; Greek and Latin
seemed to be the languages that best suited him, when the pots and
pans did not require his attention. Very companionable, and with an
expression of face, that looked somewhat like a sly laugh taking a
rest, he had unfortunately become possessed of the idea, that there
was no securing personal independence but by keeping strict guard
upon the personal dignities. He quickly made himself acquainted
with the duties proper of a cook and hutkeeper, but beyond these he
would not go when the superintendent himself was not concerned.
This was soon made plain to his fellow-servants, who thereupon
took in hand to correct the evident errors of his education. David
was in their mouths at every turn of their leisure in and about the
hut. Not a draught of water or light to a pipe was wanted but he was
called upon, and as for face washing, there was more of it in a week
now than I had seen in a whole month before, for David was the
water carrier, and they could not think to see him idle. When there
was a sheep to kill no hand but mine interfered to help, for who but
David had any business with it. He at length lost heart; I tried to
counsel him, but he could not bend, nor could he leave, for he had
engaged himself to serve twelve months upon the station. The
superintendent at last got him removed to a bush hut, to cook and
shift the hurdles for two shepherds. In this isolated and lonely
situation, without books, and with, in all likelihood, the rudest of
society in the men he shared the hut with, the yet fresh memories
he had related to me of his early homes and haunts and his hopeful
studies, would begin to burn within him, run in his dreams by night,
and waste the vigour of his mind in vain imaginations by day, until
the dull routine of his duties saddened him down to passive
acquiescence. A few weeks after he left us, I received intelligence
from Melbourne that called for my presence there, and never saw
him again.
I had not heard from home for about twelve months, and it was
by mere chance that a note to me addressed “Post Office, Avoca,”
came to hand. It spoke of letters and of the arrival of an old friend
from Glasgow. I left the slaughter yard on the second morning after
receiving the information, and, carrying only a pair of blankets, and
a hook pot, with a little bread and tea, started for Ballarat, there to
take the coach for Geelong, thence to Melbourne by the steamer,
being much too impatient to think of walking all the way, though my
pay of thirty shillings a week with rations, could ill afford the
expense. My mind running so much on home during my journey
down, I looked with somewhat modified impressions on the scenes
traversed; they had no longer novelty to recommend them, and I
found myself contrasting them with those of the old country. I
thought of the old hawthorn hedges there, of the quiet little villages,
where, to the passer by, peace and contentment seemed to find a
home, and where perhaps, when the children were at school, few
were to be seen—an ivy-covered spire, rearing its modest head
above the thatched roofs near, with a little graveyard, hallowed to
the villagers as the resting place of their dead—every nook and
corner associated with some story of the past, almost every house
intimately connected with the memories of preceding generations—
green lanes and shady walks, where the aged in their feeble rambles
find the young following in their early footprints with just such
blushing tales of confidence and love, and just such simple-hearted
hopefulness, as they can remember of themselves: whereas here,
everything in which man has a hand seems new, and hardly finished,
the smell of paint and fresh split timber predominant through all,
with occasionally a scent upon the air of green-wood fires. Little for
the old world superstition yet to fix upon outside of the mind; the
few hillocks that have begun to dot a corner of the township must
be multiplied—familiar voices must first be missed, and memory
dwell upon the bygone years in which they were accustomed to be
heard—the living must feel themselves walking near the dead—
before those old home impressions about things unseen, that make
men grave and uneasy, they know not exactly how, can renew their
troubling influence in dreams and times of loneliness. Without local
tradition to establish mental sympathy with the place, and with
people of strange dialects and tongues gathering around, the heart
may miss much of its accustomed comfort, but there is work to be
done, and good reward for it, and while that is being realised, old
habits modify, friendships and local interests arise, so that gradually
the place becomes to all intents a lasting home.
 Chapter VI.
MELBOURNE.

Melbourne consists of two portions, older and newer. The former,

which grew much slower than the latter, lies between two low,
irregular, broad-browed ridges. These are of no great length, and
flatten out their south ends on the Yarra-Yarra river which here flows
westward in front of them. Elizabeth Street, the main thoroughfare
of Melbourne, runs along the bottom of the valley between these
ridges, and in line with it is now the highway to the Diggings in the
north. The streets, unlike those of the cities in the hot countries of
the East, are wide and straight, and run at right angles. This, while
affording scope for traffic, is attended with a sacrifice of comfort, as
the rays of the sun, reflected from the white plastered walls, and
smiting direct upon the surface of the roads, make the feet sweat
and burn, while eyes unused to it and perhaps fresh from the green
shade of the forest, are oppressed by the constant glare, and in vain
seek relief in umbrellas and broad-brimmed hats. The town lies two
miles from the shipping direct, or four by the river. The latter has its
source in a diminutive spring in the Snowy mountains, about a
hundred miles to the eastward of Melbourne. The banks are in
general abrupt, and in many places high, and well wooded, with
here and there flats and gentle slopes of limited extent occurring.
The scenery is picturesque, the foliage diversified. Every short
distance presents new combinations of beauty in tree-clad height
and hollow, with birds of bright plumage, and schools of chattering
parrots on the wing. At Heidelberg, about seven miles above
Melbourne, and at intervals along the river side between, small
farmers, market-gardeners, and vine-growers have taken possession
of the slopes and alluvial bottoms, and brought them under
cultivation. In times of drought, when hot winds and clouds of dust
come sweeping from the plains, these settlers may congratulate
themselves on their situation. They are exposed, however, to danger
of another kind, for the river, slow of descent, winding much, and
confined in basin, occasionally fails to carry off the waters poured
down during the heavy rains. The bottom lands and lower slopes are
then laid fathoms deep under a turbid flood. On reaching Melbourne,
an elbow in the course at Richmond, and abrupt projecting banks, a
little lower down, in the neighbourhood of the Botanic Gardens on
the one side, with trees ranked close along the margin of the other,
retard and heap back the waters upon the lower portions of the
townships of Richmond and Low Collingwood. Should this occur by
night, and the condition of the weather at the time allow it to be
heard, the rippling of the current against the angles of the houses
which stand nearest to the swelling tide-way, may give early warning
to sleepers not too dull to unusual sound, but in places more remote
the water surrounds the habitations silently, progressing from fence
to door step, from doorstep to hearth, and steals upward on the
lighter furniture, and at last with slow oscillating motion, floats it
gently off the floor. Were an ear awake to listen, it might now and
again hear sounds like half-hushed lisping whispers, when the
surface of the deepening pool reaches the lips of empty vessels, and
begins to trickle into them; but the slumbering sense is inwardly
engaged with the incoherent details of dreams, the filling is
accomplished, and the silence that has scarce been broken is
resumed. Before the mattresses on which the sleeping inmates lie
are reached, some one, more sensitive to cold, or more lightly
covered than the others may awaken, and struck by the singular
raw-smelling freshness of the confined air, and the strange blackness
where before he has been accustomed to see only the varying
shadow of the floor, puts his foot or his hand out, in an effort to get
up to learn the reason, and so discovers it. Wading may still save
them; there is little time for hesitation when life may depend on a
few inches more or less of depth on the uneven ground that has to
be crossed in the dark to a place of safety.
 The flood is released only after passing under and around Prince’s
Bridge, abreast of Melbourne. It there finds room to spread, upon
the wharves and the streets adjoining, on the one hand, and the low
marshy ground between Emerald Hill and the town on the other.
River and roads, all are alike swallowed up in the wide deluge. A few
tree tops and roofs, a frothy swirl above submerged clumps of scrub
and tea-tree, with a drifting wreck of wooden houses and furniture,
proclaim the extent of the yet uncompleted disaster to the anxious,
interested crowds on the heights around. During the heavy rains, all
unmacadamized or unpaved roads are reduced to an almost
impassable puddle. Elizabeth Street, from its low situation, receives
nearly the whole of the surface drainage of the valley slopes, and,
during rain-storms, becomes impassable on foot. One morning
during a flood of only ordinary magnitude, I found myself with many
others at the crossing of Great Collin Street, cut off from
communication with the opposite side, by a torrent that ran leg deep
close in by the foot path, while two men were ferrying people across
in carts. I never till then had known a man in danger of being swept
away and drowned at his very door. This was immediately after a
rather heavy and protracted fall of rain, but the capacious
causewayed side-channels, and the elevation of the footpath above
the level of the road, showed that emergencies of this kind were not
unlooked for. It is good to turn from these accidents of situation, to
the contemplation of the climate, with its generous salubrity, as
exhibited in the fields and strips of garden ground. Vines flourish,
and when trained on rods round doors and windows, serve at once
for ornament and shelter from the sun.
The scarcity of houses that followed the sudden increase of the
population, led the Government to apportion a piece of Reserve
ground, near the south end of the bridge, whereon tents might be
erected. At the time of my arrival, about twenty families were so
housed, some of them looking as if they thought they had left home
truly, and were in the wilderness. Their firewood was scarce, and
their hearth on the hill side, their couch a brush bed on the ground,
and the candle after nightfall revealing unpleasantly their every
movement by the shadows on the cloth-walls. In the course of a
walk through, I came upon a few loose branches, and a blanket
thrown over them as if to dry. I heard a mumbling of voices, but was
at a loss to know from what quarter, till something round dimpled
the blanket from underneath. There was life there—I was looking on
the roof of a house. A laugh, and more dimpling as if by elbows and
hands, then a merry commotion, during which the roof fell in, and
disclosed the inmates—two beardless youths—reminded me as I
walked away, while they were disentangling themselves from the
ruins, that happiness is not dependent on outward circumstances,
else these two, without a pillow or a dish, save one ship hook-pot,
and with the rain sapping its way under them down hill and
gathering in the hollows of their knee-high ceiling, to be dislodged
by an upward punch of the hand when found to drip too fast, would
have been too serious for such exercise of limb, as revealed their
state to me.
On the northern or Melbourne side of the river, a vacant piece of
ground fronting the end of Elizabeth Street, came somehow into use
as a ready off-hand market place, where the needy might dispose of
their spare clothes, and such things as guns and pistols, razors,
watches, trinkets, books, chests, &c. Symptoms of feeling and of
sadness were observable now and then in those who were thus
engaged, but in no instance so very plainly as in that of a man well
up in years, decently but humbly dressed, who was offering for sale
a fishing-rod, a fiddle, and two walking sticks. When I approached
he was seated on the shafts of a loose cart; he had perhaps grown
weary waiting, and had taken the fiddle up, and was softly playing a
sweet simple air. His eyes were bent upon the ground, and his body
drooped like one whose thoughts were elsewhere than with the
scene around him. A very little girl, who had no doubt grown weary
too, was standing by his knee, just old enough to know, on being
told, that the things were to be sold, if any one would buy them, but
too young to have any memories associated with the instrument that
was deepening the father’s melancholy reverie. Eagerly she eyed
those loitering past, in the hope of some one stopping to look at the
slender stock; her young simple face expressive of wonder and
disappointment, and, I thought, of hungry wistfulness, as she saw
her father’s neighbours getting money and he none. I never think of
him but my heart reproaches me for leaving without speaking, but I
was then too poor to help him much, and more than likely the story
of the past that seemed revisiting his mind was incommunicable to a
stranger, while such words as he might have spoken, failing to
embody the dejection visible, might possibly have weakened the
impressions already made by making his case seem only common
after all.
The market increased in importance. The articles at first had been
exposed on boxes and chest lids, and in umbrellas opened and
inverted, or on the ground, but as trade grew brisker, tables and
light stalls were brought by those who, on making a good beginning,
had commenced to buy the stocks of others, and adopt the business
regularly. Jews were very numerous in the town, their faces began
to appear among the throng, the trade was quite in their way of life,
and they soon expanded it to such an extent, that a removal to more
roomy quarters became necessary. Two unoccupied building-sites,
one in Great Bourke Street, East, and the other in Great Collin
Street, West, received them. Open-fronted frame tents, and light
temporary wooden shops were raised, and the character of the
business so changed from its recent humble original, that a poor
dealer with a box, or a yard of bare ground only, for the exhibition of
his wares, must have felt like a vagrant on forbidden ground.
The community of tents at the bridge end, which latterly was
known by the name of Canvas Town, met eventually with a
somewhat different fate. In Melbourne, house rents were high, and
the place being of easy access from the town, many workmen were
induced to make their homes there; and, stretching calico on light
spar frames, with a calico door framed on hinges, a turf fire-place
and chimney at the end, they were enabled to live comfortably
enough in mild weather. Men with small means—builders in the first
stage of development—erected such places, and let them by the
week. Small shops were opened; hand-printed cards, announcing
that tailoring or cobbling was done within, began to appear, pasted
to the sides of doorways, with perhaps a pair of newly-mended
boots, or a small sheet of square cloth patterns. Before long, jobbing
carpenters and coopers found they need not cross the river, or go to
the adjoining townships in search of work, when the want of
benches and stools and water-barrels increased with the growing
inclination of their neighbours to settle permanently. Habitations that
in the beginning of the week had stood alone, would before the
close have become hemmed in all round by a crowd of new
erections. The buzz of life grew louder, and the hill-side began to be
trodden bare by the increasing multitude of feet. Tents where, on a
stall before the door, a modest trade in harmless effervescing drinks
had been established, began, as the neighbourhood became more
populous, to outgrow their early humility, and aspire to stronger
liquor; the painted sign-board was set up, the wings of the
establishment spread out, and nightly from underneath came sounds
of clamour and reeling men, who, jostling and rubbing their way
home along the frail cotton walls, indenting the thin fabrics with
staggering thrusts of their numb elbows, made the place no longer
habitable for the timid or the weak. Lying beyond the city limits, the
police had hitherto left the inhabitants to their own care and
keeping. This suited well the tastes and habits of many about town,
who, for reasons understood by the police, but better known to
themselves, gladly took the opportunity to escape from observation,
and came and settled down on the hill-side amongst the
unsuspecting tent-dwellers. Cries of distress, however, began to be
too common in the neighbourhood of the bridge after dark, for this
their retreat long to escape public notice. Every morning came fresh
reports of robberies and personal ill-usage, blows struck from behind
putting it past the power of the victims to say or know more than
that the thing was done. Policemen were set to patrol the district,
but they only shifted the crime from a centre to outlying roads and
pathways. The ground the tents stood on formed part of a
Government Reserve. The people had been allowed to settle on it
only to meet a temporary want of more regular accommodation, but,
as they increased in number, the opportunity for trade had induced
many from choice to set up business among them in the hope of
Government yielding to the claims of vested rights and occupation,
and allowing them to buy the ground for the permanent formation of
a township. It was agreed that were this done, substantial buildings
would quickly take the place of the existing motley and camp-like
assemblage of canvas coverings, but the authorities appeared to
think that lawlessness had struck too deep root to be so easily
eradicated, and shortly before my return to town, gave orders for
the whole to be cleared away. The Brighton road now sweeps over
the silent site.
 Chapter VII.
COURTSHIP AND MARRIAGE.

I had not been long in town before I experienced the feverish

discomfort of a sand-storm, known by the familiar name of “a
brickfielder,” and happily not more frequent than great storms in
England. The weather had been extremely hot for two or three days,
with a thirsty breeze coming from the parched plains of the interior,
the sky became of a dirty light drab colour, and the dust, heat-dried
and light, began to be whirled about in columns taller than the
house tops. Woe to the wayfarer when the road proves too narrow
to admit of an escape. Let all who can, seek shelter, for the columns
begin to take the form of clouds; close doors and windows, stuff
chink and crevice, cover beef, bread, butter, everything that will not
bear the duster, for we begin to have it thick and fast. The air is
darkened by the multitude of atoms borne along in it, to a height
above the steeple tops. All traffic in the streets has ceased, no sound
from without is heard but the rushing wind and the hailing of the
larger particles upon the panes, while the finer grains come spueing
through the seams like thin grey smoke. From the highways on the
windward side, dust, sand, and leaves, drifting in thick volume come
pouring like a torrent in upon the devoted city, burying it in a cloud
so dense that the thickest mid-day fog of England does not produce
a greater darkness within doors. The closed houses become like
heated ovens, the butter that has been covered up loses its form
and begins to spread itself along the bottom of the dish, the shirt
that in the morning was stiff with starch, now hangs wet and
clinging to the shoulders of its owner, while the head that has to
wear a hat heavier than the lightest straw, escapes delirium only by
such perspiration as puts the covering out of shape, and brings it
slipping down about the brows. Those unhappy ones whom
necessity has compelled to be outside have their sweated faces so
begrimed, that without the aid of the voice it were difficult to
recognise them, eyes, nose, and mouth being caked with the grit,
and their clothes of one even dusty hue, with every lurk and fold
laden so that the cloth itself is hidden. In the streets not a stone or
wall but the dust has gathered in wreaths round its leeward angles,
ready for a new flight on a change of wind. Before that could
happen on the occasion that I speak of, a copious shower of rain fell,
and transformed it into mud. The gale as usual, lasted only a few
hours, and ceased shortly before sunset. Several of my new
acquaintances, about the time it reached its height, had crept
underneath the bedsteads, in the hope of the floor there being less
heated than that in the full light of the windows. This being their last
resource, and it failing them, they began to curse the country for
being nothing better than a dust-bin, and were answered by a
hollow groan from the fire place, from a youth who, for coolness
(which he was not finding) sat in it with his head a full foot up the
chimney. After sundown, however, the fierceness of the heat abated,
the rain clouds came, the dust was laid, and the clear air made soft
and pleasant, and, as we stood grouped under the verandah a little
before bed time, we were led to confess that either our senses were
very grateful for relief, or there was something in an Australian
summer night that was peculiarly enjoyable now that the rain had
gone and a light wind was coming sighing from the forest, smelling
fresh and sweet, as if earth and leaf were yielding their fragrance to
its healing breath.
The acquaintances I have mentioned had but newly arrived from
Ballarat, each with about fifteen hundred pounds’ worth of gold.
Immediately previous to bottoming their claim, their prospects had
looked desperate. They had spent their all in the sinking of the shaft,
which was 150 feet deep, and slabbed from the surface to the
bottom. The gutter in which the gold lay appeared, by the signs of
business above ground along a wavy line of claims, to be taking a
course outside of theirs, but, on bottoming within one or two feet of
the given depth, they had driven downward on the slope of the
bottom bed, with anxious, hopeful haste, and found the gutter had
taken one of its uncertain turns and traversed one side of their claim
for a length of twenty feet. It was but little sleep they got until they
had all removed and washed, and safe in the hands of the
commissioner. They were all of them seamen, and all single men.
Happening to live under the same roof with them, it was occasionally
my fortune to hear them discuss their adventures of the past night,
in places and with people regarding whom Solomon has left us much
solemn warning. After a time, their pleasure palled on them, they
wanted change, and went to Geelong, leaving the house quiet and
orderly as it had been before. On the third day, however, two of
them returned for a further supply of money, and, observing
mysterious but evidently deeply conscious silence regarding their
intentions, quickly disappeared again. Four days later, on entering
the house in the early evening, I found these two sitting with two
well-dressed strangers in serious consultation with the landlady. The
strangers were their wives, for a double marriage had taken place
during their brief absence. The conversation was somehow far from
brisk; the new husbands were beginning to get sober and reflective,
which they had never fairly been since they struck the gold four
weeks before. One of the wives I would say was aged, but the other
was very young, with a simple-hearted cheerful look about her, that
seemed likely to make her sailor husband Peter, take kindly to the
fireside when he got one for her to sit down by; but so busy had he
been in getting married, the idea of a house being needed to put her
into had not until now come under his consideration. He had never
been very fastidious about a bed, or who shared the room with him,
if they kept quiet when he wanted sleep, and he seemed willing to
wink at trifles now, but the house being a bachelor’s home, he was
overruled, and was glad of my company in his search for other
quarters down about Low Collingwood. His comrade, whom he had
led almost against his will into this nice dilemma, appeared with
mysterious suddenness to have fallen into meek subjection to his
late spinster’s wishes. He prepared to go along with us, she did the
same and at the first turning, making some slight excuse about
there being a double chance if we separated in the search, she led
him off, he looking much like one who has been asked to accompany
a policeman to the station, when he would rather not. Peter was at a
loss what to make of her proposal; he was hardly prepared to be
thus thrown upon his own resources in the new and untried life, and
as she nodded back to him across her shoulder as they walked away,
he quietly confessed himself “done brown,” and scratching his head
with an outwitted air said “he had never been left with so much
slack in his hand before.” We wandered up and down through many
streets, finding plenty of lodgings for single men, but none for wives.
At last in one of a detached row of newly erected wooden houses,
we found a family who made no positive objections. Tired with
repeated failures, Peter thought to overrule any little scruple they
might have, by saying that the price was no object with him, but
this, together with the absence of anything very husband-like in his
air or manner, awakened suspicion that caused the young housewife
to send for her father to have some talk with us, but the addition of
three shillings to the twelve that had been at first named for the
week removed the difficulty. We were then asked to look at the
accommodation. Peter replied that it was no matter, he supposed it
was all right, but followed me as far as the room door, and turning
his head right and left, said it would do as well as the very best. For
floor there was the bare earth, with a few tufts of withered and foot-
trodden grass, and with a plentiful sprinkling of wood shavings, chips
and sawdust, which of course would be broomed out before Peter
with his wife returned to take possession; the bedstead was made of
wood with the bark still on it, if what was seen of the low post feet
told a true tale; there was a small table made of an old chest lid,
with four slim new legs; a broken looking glass, one chair, a long
stool, and nothing more. The family seemed personally decent, and
Peter’s money would no doubt help them to complete their
furnishing, but he remained with them only a few days.
He had no notion of the use his money might be put to. He saw
no call for distressing himself with work when he had so much in the
bank, but to occupy some of the time that would otherwise have
hung heavy on his hand, he bought a horse and dray, always
drawing upon his capital when his earnings were deficient, until at
last, but not till after I had left the colony, his capital became so
small that he banked it in his pocket. His married comrade not
having been so left to his own guidance, is now living in comparative
independence, and having had to forsake the company of his old
associates, his manner towards them so betrayed obedience to a
resolution that was not his own, that out of consideration for him,
they gave over troubling him, but not before one of them was
treated by the wife to an unsolicited opinion of him and his
confederates, too near the truth for repetition to be desirable.
Previous to the visit to Geelong, Peter and the young woman whom
he married were perfect strangers to each other, but discovering
they were from the same small town in the north-east of Scotland,
they appeared to think it recommendation enough, and quickly came
to their agreement. The other two had been slightly acquainted
years before; a good idea of the value of money on the one side,
and the excitement of drink on the other, brought them to
conclusions with Peter’s help, Peter disliking to get married alone.
About the time of the marriages, another seaman, a fellow
townsman of the bridegroom’s, came to town for a few weeks to
recruit from the fatigue of twelve months’ constant labour at the
diggings. He told no one what success he had met with, but from his
manner on being questioned, it was judged he had got enough to
satisfy him for the present. He was known by the name of “Roddie.”
He was bald, but liked not to be told so, and when his age was
spoken of had ever the same answer, that he could lead some of us
young men a dance we durst not follow him in, he was not so old
but he could do that—in fact he was not old at all. The case of his
friends causing marriage to be talked of, we affected to think he
would greatly consult his own interest and comfort by marrying
some one to take care of him in his declining years, but, winking
slyly, he said he knew a great deal too much for that, he had not
been born with a fool’s hood on his head. It so happened however
that a young woman in service in the neighbourhood, came on a
visit to the landlady, one evening when Roddie was at home. She
was about half his own age, stout, not very good-looking, and rather
grey in the skin, but with no airs about her, and, as far as we could
see, not likely to object to become “Mrs Roddie.” We did our best to
raise a flame, but Roddie would not burn, though as he seemed not
to fret under our very plain attempts, we persevered from time to
time, but ever got the same sly wink and the remark that “he knew
too much for that.” At length, however, the landlady, in confidence,
showed us some manuscript poetry, the production of her friend,
whom she familiarly called “Peggy.” The rhyme was very middling,
and not well measured; the sentiment was of love, and was very
serious and simple. In due time, Roddie was given the luxury of a
reading in our absence. On our return we found him spelling his way
through it for the third time. Our opinion being asked, we proved
more amiable critics than young poets generally meet with, but were
careful not to say too much, and lest we might, we shortly began to
talk of something else. Before bed time the landlady asked him for
the paper, but he seemed reluctant. She begged it of him, and put
out her hand to take it, on which he put it in his pocket. She
implored him to return it to her, as she was afraid if Peggy knew she
had been showing it, she would never visit her house again, but
Roddie was not to be moved, and ended the matter for the present
by telling her to let Peggy know that he wanted to get the verses off
by heart. Our help was but little needed after this, the poetry had
done the business. He began to visit her, and was every now and
again bringing some new verses to delight us with. Sitting down by
another young man and me, his heart swelling with feeling too big
for him to hold it all, the act of letting loose the excess threw him
into raptures that were sometimes too plainly honest for amusement
to be drawn from them. Not an expression of hers the least
uncommon, but was repeated to us, not a trait observable, but was
made the subject of a long warm discourse. Her life however being
rather commonplace, there were visits made in which nothing really
novel or out of the ordinary course came to the surface, however
much they helped to confirm their growing sympathy. He maundered
considerably after these seasons of level happiness, and made us at
times wish he had her and was done with it, but, though inclined
enough to talk, he had not quite yet reached the marrying emotion.
It took him some weeks to do that, and a lot of new poetry
descriptive of the married state had to be written before he did. I
happened to be at a distance when the wedding took place, so was
not there to see, but learnt that it had been a grand affair. Neither of
them having any friends, at whose house to celebrate the event, he
hired a tavern in Little Bourke Street, and kept open house to all
comers. All went well until near midnight, when the general public,
who were being treated so handsomely withal in the lower rooms,
moved by a very natural desire to see their benefactor, went in a
crowd up stairs, and unceremoniously ushering themselves in among
the marriage guests, had all quickly in an uproar. Roddie was not
sure about this behaviour being quite proper, but feeling powerless
to command the storm, and much too happy at heart for outside
disturbance to disquiet him greatly, he calmed the commotion in
Peggy’s breast, by telling her the men meant no harm, it was just a
way they had, it would all come right enough. Distrusting them,
however, he saw reason to retire with Peggy shortly after the
irruption, but being quickly missed, and followed, their bedroom
door was forced, and the old and unseemly custom of “bedding” was
observed, with just such ruthless barbarity as might have been
expected of drunken men. They thronged the room—they crowded
upon the bed. Roddie besought and prayed they would “give over,”
but his bald head had no reverence in their eyes, and got many a
slap as he was told to hide it beneath the clothes, and not till Peggy
cried and wailed as if her heart would break, could the room be
cleared.
I heard of them afterwards living on the diggings, he so proud of
her that he had committed to her care the management of all his
movements and concerns, and was thriving none the worse for
having done so. He had before been only a single unit in the crowd,
herding and shifting with it undistinguished, but now he had got
both name and habitation. Friends came to visit him, and, under his
hospitable roof, enjoyed cheerful home-like hours, that my own
experience taught me must have been precious to humble unmated
wanderers, laying on their minds impressions then little heeded, but
destined to exercise, it might be, unmeasured influence, when time
and circumstances, and the heart unsatisfied, would cause them to
lean their heads upon their hands, and run back among the
memories and shifting homeless scenes that seemed to be repeating
themselves without end.
There were too many seeking clean-handed occupation for one to
be readily successful, and I was thankful at last on getting
employment as yard-hand in a small brewery, at two pounds a-week,
out of which went about sixteen shillings for provisions, which I had
to buy and cook myself. For the better protection of the property, I
required to sleep upon the premises at one end of a low wooden
shed, lumbered with bags of corks and bottle racks. The situation,
close to the depot for Government emigrants at the west end of
Little Collin Street, was lonely. The time was winter, so that, as my
work was limited to daylight, I had long nights of leisure; and being
very content with books for my companions, I read much, and I look
back upon the quiet enjoyment so derived under the peculiar
circumstances with subdued but not sorrowing remembrance. The
wind whistled and wailed about the frail erection, and whirled the
rustling straw about the yard, as I sat with my feet to a small pan of
glowing wood—the feeble rays of the small yellow candle barely
lightening the box-like darkness round about, and bringing a dreary
feeling creeping over me, that occasionally, before I had got quite
accustomed to the singular distinctness of sounds heard by night,
caused me to see shapes in shadows, and hear fingers as it were
feeling for the latch.
There were many places of amusement in town at this time,
though not so many as now. The one that most attracted me was at
the head of Great Bourke Street, East, an old circus transformed into
a promenade concert room, where, though the assembled company
might not be strictly select, the music was. My visits there, however,
seemed but to make my loneliness at home more dull. To save me
from rats, and to serve in some way for a companion, a dog was
given me, a melancholy-looking animal, short-haired, with brown
spots on a white ground, and with a tail about the length of my fore-
finger. He cowered and trembled, and seemed ever so ready to run
out of the way into a corner, when I moved or rose from my seat
after a short stillness, that, apart from the effect of strangeness in
me and in the place, I saw he had been unkindly treated in his
youth. The place swarmed with rats; they clambered up and down
the walls, and, gnawing their way into boxes, made sorry work with
my provisions, and when my blankets happened to hang down from
the “stretcher” on which I slept, they over-ran myself as if not
satisfied with the provisions only. One night I was awakened by one
with its fore-feet in my whiskers, and its nose dotting cold points
upon my cheek. The dog lay alongside within reach of my arm,
sound asleep and snoring. I called him while the enemy was yet
audibly scampering under cover, but he did not understand, and only
licked my hand as if in humble appeal to me not to beat him, he had
not been guilty of anything he knew of. I felt angry, and, by a cuff,
was about to let him know it, when my uplifted hand was rendered
powerless by the recollection of something that happened on the
previous day, in which, had cuffs been a meet reward for neglect of
duty, I would have had one; the tongue gave another lick, and
followed the retreating hand with more. The poor animal whimpered
and rose with his fore-feet on the bed, and licking my face, as good
as asked me what I wanted with him. I would rather he had
remained dull and stupid on the ground, for I was troubled at the
contrast between his conduct and my own, and lost some sleep by
thinking over it.
My work, consisting mainly of bottle and brew-cask washing, lay
outside in the cold wintry weather. There was too little bodily
exercise in it to keep one warm. Much rain fell, the unpaved yard
was miry, my feet and legs became wet and clogged with clay, and
the loose bag on my shoulders failed to keep my body dry. My
thoughts began to turn upon the better life I had forsaken in the old
country—began, upon reflection, to fancy myself a worse man than
then, not so God-fearing, ruder in feeling, and unable to see harm
where before harm was plainly visible. Old attachments that I
thought forgotten began to win their way back to my heart.
Recollections of old office-mates, and of my race with them for
preferment mingled with the rest, and made me restless. After losing
close upon three years, was it possible to overtake them now? I felt
the spirit moving that would try, but for some time hesitated at the
thought that, once returned, I might find my chances marred,
without the easy alternative of such humble occupation as this with
the brewer. Balancing the arguments in my mind, while picking my
steps through the thinnest of the mud, I observed my poor dog
following me wistfully about, his tail down, his legs bent under him,
his body arched, and plainly shivering with cold. I stood and looked.
Drooping his head he crept closer to me, looked pitifully up, and,
wiping his nose with his ever-ready tongue, gave a low trembling
whine that seemed the nearest thing to a cry I had ever heard from
a dog. He tried to reach my hand, and, forgetting for the moment
where he stood, dipped his tail into the mud in an offer to sit for a
more upright look at my sympathizing face. I felt it was good for
neither of us to be there. In his unhappiness, I saw as it were my
own reflected. He tipped the balance in favour of old home, but,
poor fellow, in doing so he lost a friend.
 APPENDIX.

As some may be interested in a fuller account of gold-digging than

the limited scope of the personal narrative allowed, the following
particulars are added.
In the Bendigo district, the shafts are generally 10 to 15 feet
deep, through loose gravel, and sometimes through sandy earth that
requires only the spade in digging. For raising the stuff from the
bottom, rudely constructed winches are employed in the deeper
holes, and, for the shallower, simple swing bars, which are merely
one stout pole balanced horizontally on the forked end of another
set upright, a counterbalance, rather in excess of the weight to be
raised, making the operation of lifting both quick and easy. At
Tarrangower, the usual depth was much the same as at Bendigo:
there was, in the parts wrought when I was there, a thick crust of
hard pebbly concrete to go through, at which unskilled workmen
hammered in vain. At the neighbouring diggings of Maryborough,
Burnt Creek, and Victoria Hill, there was a stratum similar, but more
formidable, and bearing marks of fire and partial fusion, so that even
heavy hammer-picks made no impression on them. Steel gads were
used, struck by heavy malls, but weeks of patient toil were required
to pierce a thickness of a few feet. Gunpowder was sometimes
employed, but it shook the ground too much, and was generally
condemned. At “Hard Hill,” in Burnt Creek, I was one afternoon
crossing the line of holes, when a man as white as any miller came
out of one for a breath of fresh air. We spoke. He had been a month
already in sinking ten feet, three of which were crust, and he
expected to be another month in bottoming on the pipe clay. I
looked down and could hardly distinguish the present bottom
through the floating grit that hung smoke-like within. The ground
down in the flat, where the sinking was easier, was not yielding even
bare bread to the few still lingering about it, and discouraging
reports—common on the diggings even in the best of times—coming
from Tarrangower and Maryborough at the time, those thus
labouring on the “Hill” not knowing but that they might remove only
to fare worse, were for the time resting satisfied with their hard
pickings so long as they could live by them. In the first days of the
diggings, men would not work ground if the gold was not plentiful
enough to be seen and picked out with the fingers, but latterly they
became, and now are, very well pleased if they can but keep
themselves decently, the generally long-deferred hope of finding a
nugget, or a pocket of grains, making them bear with discomforts
that would be felt as more than irksome under ordinary wage
service.
In Bendigo, at first only the pipe-clay surface, and a few inches of
the earthy gravel overlying it, were considered worthy of notice.
After a long interval the ground was re-opened, and a foot more of
the earthy gravel removed and washed and found to pay very well—
as things then went. Later on, as men’s views further modified, it
was considered that there was gold enough in the whole mass of
earth above the pipe clay to remunerate, if adequate means were
employed to separate it. Parties with small capital combined, made
dams and water sluices, and washing the earth wholesale, reaped a
profit. Where the gold lay mixed with clay however, a process
termed “puddling” required to precede the sluicing and the cradle-
washing. In the case of individual diggers with small means, the
puddling is done with a spade in an ordinary tub, under three feet in
diameter, the stuff being swilled and stirred until the clay is all
dissolved and washed away, but when the quantities are
considerable, as in workings belonging to a company, the tub used
might be ten or twelve feet in diameter, and five or six feet deep,
sunk in the ground, with an upright shaft in the centre, fitted with
projecting blades as in an ordinary pug mill, and made to revolve by
one or two horses yoked to arms projecting from the top of the
shaft. If the gold is very fine, it is necessary to renew the water
frequently to allow of the fine grains settling to the bottom.
The cradle in ordinary use for washing is in shape much the same
as the piece of homely furniture it takes its name from. It is
furnished with rockers, and when at work has its head raised a few
inches higher than the foot, for the due escape of the water used. A
quantity of stuff from the puddling tub is placed in a hopper at the
cradle head, and a stream of water turned to flow quietly and
regularly upon it, at the same time that the rocking is commenced,
the smaller particles and with them the gold, thus set in motion, are
washed down between the bars, into a compartment beneath, and
from it into a second, and thence down to the discharge opening
along the bottom of the box, across which at short intervals are
check bars about an inch deep, which intercept the gold as it is
rocked along close on the bottom, but which allow the lighter sand
and the water to flow over. A careless or inexperienced hand, by
pouring water in too freely, and neglecting to keep up the rocking
motion, would let the gold away with the gush.
The final process is performed in a shallow, circular tin dish, about
four inches deep, two feet diameter at top, and about eighteen
inches at bottom. Into it is put the mixture of sand and gold,
removed at intervals from behind the check bars in the cradles, then
the washer balancing it in his hands by means of ear handles under
the rim outside, dips it in a pool and lifts in it as much water as sets
the stuff aswimming when swilled and shaken, then allows the gold
to sink through the sand to the bottom by reason of its greater
weight. The surface stuff is then laved out, and the process of
swilling, shaking, and laving repeated until only the gold remains.
For ease and convenience the drifts and chambers underground
are made in the pipe clay below the gold level, a thickness of an inch
or less being left, coating the gravel of the roof, in which when
sufficient breadth has been bared, examination is made with knife
and candle for gold, which is found in greatest quantity on the
surface of and immediately above the clay.
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