My Sorrow Was Not Mitigated By My Mates And Neighbours
Informing Me, That Australia Was A Penal Settlement.
Inveterate murderers,
audacious burglars, bloodthirsty bushrangers, were the ruling triumvirate,
the scour of old Europe, called Vandemonians, in this bullock-drivers' land.
Of course I felt tamed, and felt less angry, at the following search
for licence.
At the latter end of the month, one hundred and seventy
seven pounds troy, in two superb masses of gold, were discovered at the depth
of sixty feet, on the hill opposite where I was working. The talk was soon
Vulcanish through the land. Canadian Gully was as rich in lumps as other
gold-fields are in dust. Diggers, whom the gold fever had rendered
stark blind, so as to desert Ballaarat for Mount Alexander and Bendigo,
now returned as ravens to the old spot; and towards the end of February, '53,
Canadian Gully was in its full glory.
Chapter IV.
Incipit Lamentatio.
The search for licences, or "the traps are out to-day" - their name at the
time - happened once a month. The strong population now on this gold-field had
perhaps rendered it necessary twice a month. Only in October, I recollect
they had come out three times. Yet, "the traps are out" was annoying,
but not exasperating. Not exasperating, because John Bull, 'ab initio et
ante secula', was born for law, order, and safe money-making on land and sea.
They were annoying, because, said John, not that he likes his money more
than his belly, but he hates the bayonet: I mean, of course, he does not want
to be bullied with the bayonet. To this honest grumbling of John,
the drunkard, that is the lazy, which make the incapables, joined their cant,
and the Vandemonians pulled up with wonted audacity. In a word, the
thirty shillings a month for the gold licence became a nuisance.
A public meeting was announced on Bakery-hill. It was in November, 1853.
Four hundred diggers were present. I recollect I heard a "Doctor Carr"
poking about among the heaps of empty bottles all round the Camp, and asked
who paid for the good stuff that was in them, and whither was it gone.
Of course, Doctor Carr did not mention, that one of those bottles, corked
and sealed with the "Crown," was forced open with Mr. Hetherington's corkscrew;
and that said Dr. Carr had then to confess that the bottle aforesaid contained
a nobbler some 250 pounds worth for himself. Great works already at Toorak.
'Tout cela soit dit en passant.' Mr. Hetherington, then a storekeeper
on the Ballaarat Flat, and now of the Cladendon Hotel, Ballaarat Township,
is a living witness. For the fun of the thing, I spoke a few words
which merited me a compliment from the practitioner, who also honoured me
with a private precious piece of information - "'Nous allons bientot avoir
la Republique Australienne! Signore.'" "'Quelle farce! repondis je.'" The
specimen of man before me impressed me with such a decided opinion
of his ability for destroying sugarsticks, that at once I gave him credit
as the founder of a republic for babies to suck their thumbs.
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