Gippsland, and from every squatting station and every lonely hut on
the plains and mountains men gathered in troops. They were leaving
plenty of gold behind them at Walhalla and other places. The first
party Davy met had a dray and bullocks. They were slowly cutting a
road through the scrub, and their team was the first that made its
way over the mountains from Gippsland to Melbourne. Their captain
was a lady of unbounded bravery and great strength--a model
pioneeress, with a talent for governing the opposite sex.* When at
home on her station she did the work of a man and a woman too. She
was the one in a thousand so seldom found. She not only did the
cooking and housework, but she also rode after stock, drove a team,
killed fat beasts, chopped wood, stripped bark, and fenced. She did
not hanker after woman's rights, nor rail against the male sex. She
was not cultured, nor scientific, nor artistic, nor aesthetic. She
despised all the ologies. All great men respected her, and if the
little ones were insolent she boxed their ears and twisted their
necks. She conquered all the blackfellows around her land with her
own right arm. At first she had been kind to them, but they soon
became troublesome, wanted too much flour, sugar, and beef, and
refused to go away when she ordered them to do so. Without another
word she took down her stockwhip, went to the stable, and saddled her
horse. Then she rounded up the blackfellows like a mob of cattle and
started them. If they tried to break away, or to hide themselves
among the scrub, or behind tussocks, she cut pieces out of their
hides with her whip. Then she headed them for the Ninety-mile Beach,
and landed them in the Pacific without the loss of a man. In that
way she settled the native difficulty. The Neills, with a bullock
team, the Buckleys and Moores, with horse teams, followed the track
of the leading lady. The station-owners stayed at home and watched
their fat stock, which soon became valuable, and was no longer boiled.
[Footnote] *Mrs. Buntine; died 1896.
On December 31st, 1851, there were in Tasmania twenty thousand and
sixty-nine convicts. Six months afterwards more than ten thousand
had left the island, and in three years forty-five thousand eight
hundred and eighty-four persons, principally men, had left for the
diggings. It was evident that Sir Wm. Denison would soon have nobody
to govern but old women and children, a circumstance derogatory to
his dignity, so he wrote to England for more convicts and immigrants,
and he pathetically exclaimed, "To whom but convicts could
colonists look to cultivate their lands, to tend their flocks, to
reap their harvests?" In the month of May, 1853, Sir William wrote
that "the discovery of gold had turned him topsy-turvy altogether,"
and he rejoiced that no gold had been discovered in his island. Then
the Legislature perversely offered a reward of five thousand pounds
to any man who would discover a gold field in Tasmania, but, as a
high-toned historian observes, "for many years they were so fortunate
as not to find it."
The convicts stole boats at Launceston, and landed at various places
about Corner Inlet. Some were arrested by the police and sent back
to Tasmania. Many called at Yanakie Station for free rations. Mr.
Bennison applied for police protection, and Old Joe, armed with a
carbine, was sent from Alberton as a garrison. Soon afterwards a
cutter of about fifteen tons burden arrived at Corner Inlet manned by
four convicts, who took the mainsail ashore and used it as a tent.
They then allowed the cutter to drift on the rocks under Mount
Singapore, and she went to pieces directly. While trying to find a
road to Melbourne, they came to Yanakie Station, and they found
nobody at the house except Joe, Mrs. Bennison, and an old hand. It
was now Joe's duty to overawe and arrest the men, but they, although
unarmed, overawed and arrested Joe. He became exceedingly civil, and
after Mrs. Bennison had supplied them with provisions he showed them
the road to Melbourne. They were arrested a few days afterwards at
Dandenong and sent back to the island prison.
A NEW RUSH.
----
"And there was gathering in hot haste."
When gold was first discovered at Stockyard Creek, Griffiths, one of
the prospectors, came to me with the intention of registering the
claim, under the impression that I was Mining Registrar. He showed me
a very good sample of gold. As I had not then been appointed
registrar, he had to travel sixty miles further before he could
comply with the necessary legal formalities. Then the rush began.
Old diggers came from all parts of Victoria, New South Wales,
Queensland, and New Zealand; also men who had never dug before, and
many who did not intend to dig--pickpockets, horse thieves, and
jumpers. The prospectors' claim proved the richest, and the jumpers
and the lawyers paid particular attention to it. The trail of the
old serpent is over everything. The desire of the jumpers was to
obtain possession of the rich claim, or of some part of it; and the
lawyers longed for costs, and they got them. The prospectors paid,
and it was a long time before they could extricate their claim from
the clutches of the law. They found the goldfield, and they also
soon found an unprofitable crop of lawsuits growing on it. They were
called upon to show cause before the warden and the Court of Mines
why they should not be deprived of the fruit of their labours. The
fact of their having discovered gold, and of having pegged out and
registered their claim, could not be denied; but then it was argued
by counsel most learned in mining law that they had done something
which they should have omitted to do, or had omitted to do something
else which they should have done, frail human beings as they were,
and therefore their claim should be declared to belong to some
Ballarat jumper. I had to sit and listen to such like legal logic
until it made me sick, and ashamed of my species. Of course, justice
was never mentioned, that was out of the question; if law and justice
don't agree, so much the worse for justice.
Gold was next found at Turton's Creek, which proved one of the
richest little gullies ever worked by diggers. It was discovered by
some prospectors who followed the tracks which Mr. Turton had cut
over the scrubby mountains, and so they gratefully gave his name to
the gully, but I never heard that they gave him any of the gold which
they found in it. A narrow track from Foster was cut between high
walls of impenetrable scrub, and it soon became like a ditch full of
mud, deep and dangerous. If the diggers had been assured that they
would find heaven at the other end of it, they would never have tried
to go, the prospect of eternal happiness having a much less attraction
for them than the prospect of gold; but the sacred thirst made them
tramp bravely through the slough. The sun and wind never dried the
mud, because it was shut in and overshadowed by the dense growth of
the bush. All tools and provisions were carried through it on the
backs of horses, whose legs soon became caked with mud, and the hair
was taken off them as clean as if they had been shaved with a razor.
Most of them had a short life and a hard one.
The digging was quite shallow, and the gully was soon rifled of the
gold. At this time there was a mining registrar at Foster, as the
new diggings at Stockyard Creek were named, and some men, after
pegging out their claim at Turton's Creek, went back down the ditch
to register them at Foster. It was a great mistake. It was neither
the time nor the place for legal forms or ceremony. Time was of the
essence of the contract, and they wasted the essence. Other and
wiser men stepped on to their ground while they were absent,
commenced at once to work vigorously, and the original peggers, when
they returned, were unable to dislodge them. Peter Wilson pegged out
a claim, and then rode away to register it. He returned next day and
found two men on it who had already nearly worked it out.
"This claim is mine, mates," said Peter; "I pegged it out yesterday,
and I have registered it. You will have to come out."
One of the men looked up at Peter and said, "Oh! your name is Peter,
isn't it? I hear you are a fighting man. Well, you just come down
off that bare-legged horse, and I'll kill you in a couple of minutes,
while I take a spell."
"It's no use your talking that way; you'll see I'll have the law on
you, and you'll have to pay for it," replied Peter.
"You can go, Peter, and fetch the law as soon as you like. I don't
care a tinker's curse for you or the law; all I want is the profits,
and I'm going to have them."
This profane outlaw and his mate got the profits, cleared all the
gold out of Peter's claim, and took it away with them.
It was reported in Melbourne that there was no law or order at
Turton's Creek; that the diggers were treating the mining statutes
and regulations with contempt; that the gold went to the strong, and
the weakest went to the wall. Therefore, six of the biggest
policemen in Melbourne were selected, stretched out, and measured in
Russell Street barracks, and were then ordered to proceed to Turton's
Creek and vindicate the majesty of the law. They landed from the
steamer on the wharf at Port Albert, and, being armed with carbines
and revolvers, looked very formidable. They proceeded on their
journey in the direction of Foster, and it was afterwards reported
that they arrived at Turton's Creek, and finding everybody quiet and
peaceable, they came back again, bringing with them neither jumpers
nor criminals. It was said, however, that they never went any
further than the commencement of the ditch. They would naturally, on
viewing it, turn aside and camp, to recruit their energies and
discuss the situation. Although they were big constables, it did not
follow they were big fools. They said the Government ought to have
asphalted the ditch for them. It was unreasonable to expect men,
each six foot four inches in height, carrying arms and accoutrements,
which they were bound by the regulations to keep clean and in good
order, to plunge into that river of mud, and to spoil all their
clothes.
Turton's Creek was soon worked out, and before any professional
jumpers or lawyers could put their fingers in the pie, the plums were
all gone. The gully was prospected from top to bottom, and the hills
on both sides were tunnelled, but no more gold, and no reefs were
found. There was much speculation by geologists, mining experts, and
old duffers as to the manner in which the gold had contrived to get
into the creek, and where it came from; where it went to, the diggers
who carried it away in their pockets knew well enough.
The diggers dispersed; some went to Melbourne to enjoy their wealth;
some stayed at Foster to try to get more; some died from the extreme
enjoyment of riches suddenly acquired, and a few went mad. One of
the latter was brought to Palmerston, and remained there a day or two
on his way to the Yarra Bend Lunatic Asylum. Having an inborn thirst
for facts, I conversed with him from the wooden platform which
overlooks the gaol yard. He was walking to and fro, and talking very
cheerfully to himself, and to the world in general. He spoke well,
and had evidently been well educated, but his ideas were all in
pieces as it were, and lacked connection. He spoke very
disrespectfully of men in high places, both in England and the
Colonies; and remarked that Members of Parliament were the greatest
rascals on the face of the earth. No man of sound mind would ever
use such language as that.
Some years afterwards, while I was Collector of Customs at Port
Albert, I received a letter from Melbourne to the following purport:
"Yarra Bend Asylum,
----------188--
"Strictly private and confidential
"Sir,--You are hereby ordered to take possession of and detain
every vessel arriving at Port Albert. You will immediately proceed
on board each of them, and place the broad arrow abaft the foremast
six feet above the deck. You will thus cut off all communication
with the British Empire. I may state that I am the lawful heir to
the title and estates of a Scottish dukedom, and am deprived of the
possession and enjoyment of my rightful station and wealth by the
machinations of a band of conspirators, who have found means to
detain me in this prison in order to enjoy my patrimony. You will
particularly observe that you are to hold no communication whatever
with the Governor of this colony, as he is the paid agent of the
conspirators, and will endeavour to frustrate all efforts to obtain
my rights. You will also be most careful to withhold all information
from the Duke of Dunsinane, who is a member of the junior branch of
my family, and at the head of the conspiracy. You will proceed as
soon as possible to enrol a body of men for the purpose of effecting
my deliverance by force of arms. As these men will require payment
for their services, you will enter the Bank of Victoria at Port
Albert, and seize all the money you will find there, the amount of
which I estimate at ten thousand pounds, which will be sufficient for
preliminary expenses. You will give, in my name, to the manager of
the bank, a guarantee in writing for repayment of the money, with
current rate of interest added, when I recover the dukedom and
estates. Be careful to explain to him that you take the money only
as a loan, and that will prevent the bank from laying any criminal
charge against you. Should anything of the kind be in contemplation,
you will be good enough to report progress to me as soon as possible,
and I will give you all necessary instructions as to your future
proceedings.
"I may mention that in seeking to obtain my title and estates, I am
influenced by no mean or mercenary considerations; my sole desire is
to benefit the human race. I have been employing all my leisure
hours during the last nine years in perfecting a system of philosophy
entirely new, and applicable to all times, to all nations, and to all
individuals. I have discovered the true foundation for it, which,
like all great inventions, is so simple that it will surprise the
world it was never thought of before. It is this: "Posito
impossibili sequitur quidlibet." My philosophy is founded on the
firm basis of the Impossible; on that you can build anything and
everything. My great work is methodical, divided into sections and
chapters, perfect in style, and so lucid in argument that he who runs
may read and be enlightened. I have counted the words, and they
number so far seven hundred and two thousand five hundred and
seventy-eight (702,578). Five years more will be required to
complete the work; I shall then cause it to be translated into every
language of the world, and shipped at the lowest rate of tonnage for
universal distribution gratis. This will ensure its acceptance and
its own beauty and intrinsic merits will secure its adoption by all
nations, and the result will be human happiness. It will supersede
all the baseless theories of science, religion, and morality which
have hitherto confounded the human intellect.
"Extract from my Magnum Opus.
"We may reasonably suppose that matter is primordially self-existent,
and that it imbued itself with the potentiality of life. It
therefore produced germs. A pair of germs coalesced, and formed a
somewhat discordant combination, the movements in which tended
towards divergence. They attracted and enclosed other atoms, and,
progressing through sleep and wakefulness, at last arrived at
complete satisfaction, or perfect harmonic combination. This
harmonic combination is death. We may say then, in brief, that
growth is simply discordant currents progressing towards harmony.
One question may be briefly noticed. It has been asked, when did
life first appear on the earth? We shall understand now that the
question is unnecessary. Life first appeared on the earth when the
earth first appeared as an unsatisfied atom seeking combination. The
question is rather, when did the inanimate first appear? It appeared
when the first harmonic combination was effected. The earth is
indeed to be considered as having grown up through the life that is
inherent in it. Man is the most concentrated and differentiated
outgrowth of that life. Mankind is, so to speak, the brain of the
earth, and is progressing towards the conscious guidance of all its
processes."
"Dunsinane."
It was not clear on what ground this noble duke based his authority
over me; but I had been so long accustomed to fulfil the behests of
lunatics of low degree that I was able to receive those of an
afflicted lord with perfect equanimity. But as I could not see that
my obedience would be rewarded with anything except death or
Pentridge, I refrained from action. I did not place the broad arrow
abaft of anything or anybody, nor did I make a levy on the cash in
the Bank of Victoria.
GIPPSLAND AFTER THIRTY YEARS.
"A pleasing land of drowsihed it was,
And dreams that wave before the half-shut eye."
For twelve years I did the Government stroke in Her Majesty's Court
at Colac, then I was ordered to make my way to Gippsland.
The sun of wisdom shone on a new ministry. They observed that many
of their officers were destitute of energy, and they resolved to
infuse new life into the service, by moving its members continually
from place to place. But officials live long, and the most robust
ministry dies early, and the wisdom of one cabinet is foolishness to
the next.
I took root so deeply in the soil of Gippsland that I became
immoveable. Twice the Government tried to uproot me, but I remained
there to the end of my official days.
Little reliable information about the country or its inhabitants was
to be had, so I fondly imagined that in such a land, secured from
contamination by the wicked world outside, I should find a people of
primeval innocence and simplicity, and the long-forgotten lines
returned to my memory:
"Beatus ille qui procul negotils,
Ut prisca gens mortalium."
It was summer time, and the weather was serene and beautiful, when in
the grey dusk of the evening we sailed through the Rip at Port Philip
Heads. Then began the troubles of the heaving ocean, and the log of
the voyage was cut short. It ran thus:
"The ship went up, and the ship went down; and then we fell down, and
then we was sick; and then we fell asleep; and then we was at Port
Albert; and that's all I knows about it."
I walked along the one street past the custom house, the post-office,
and the bank, about three hundred yards and saw nothing beyond but
tea-tree and swamps, through which ran a roughly-metalled road,
leading apparently to the distant mountains. There was nothing but
stagnation; it was the deadest seaport ever seen or heard of. There
were some old stores, empty and falling to pieces, which the owners
had not been enterprising enough to burn for the insurance money; the
ribs of a wrecked schooner were sticking out of the mud near the
channel; a stockyard, once used for shipping cattle, was rotting
slowly away, and a fisherman's net was hanging from the top rails to
dry. Three or four drays filled with pigs were drawn up near the
wharf; these animals were to form part of the steamer's return cargo,
one half of her deck space being allotted to pigs, and the other half
to passengers. In case of foul weather, the deck hamper, pigs and
passengers, was impartially washed overboard.
An old man in a dirty buggy was coming along the road, and all the
inhabitants and dogs turned out to look and bark at him, just as they
do in a small village in England, when the man with the donkey-cart
comes in sight. To allay my astonishment on observing so much
agitation and excitement, the Principal Inhabitant introduced
himself, and informed me that it was a busy day at the Port, a kind
of market day, on account of the arrival of the steamer.
I began sorrowfully to examine my official conscience to discover for
which of my unatoned-for sins I had been exiled to this dreary land.
Many a time in after years did I see a stranger leave the steamer,
walk, as I had done, to the utmost extremity of the seaport, and
stand at the corner of the butcher's shop, gazing on the swamps, the
tea-tree, and the far-away wooded hills, the Strelezcki ranges. The
dismal look of hopeless misery thatstole over his countenance was
pitiful to behold. After recovering the power of speech, his first
question was, "How is it possible that any man could ever consent to
live in a hole like this?" Here the Principal Inhabitant intervened,
and poured balm on the wounded spirit of the stranger. He gently
reminded him that first impressions are not always to be relied on;
and assured him that if he would condescend to take up his abode with
us for two or three years, he would never want to live anywhere else.
The climate was delicious, the best in the world; it induced a
feeling of repose, and bliss, and sweet contentment. We had no ice
or snow, or piercing blasts in winter; and the heat of summer was
tempered by the cool breezes of the Pacific Ocean, which gently
lapped our lovely shores. The land, when cleared, was as rich and
fertile as the farmer's heart could wish, yielding abundant pasturage
both in summer and winter. The mountains sent down to us unfailing
supplies of the purest water; we wanted no schemes of irrigation, for
"Green are our fields and fair our flowers,
Our fountains never drumlie."
We had no plagues of locust, no animal or insect pests to destroy our
crops or herbage. Rabbits had been introduced and turned loose at
various times, but, instead of multiplying until they had become as
numerous as the sand on the seashore, as had been the case in other
parts of Australia, in Gippsland they invariably died; and it had
been abundantly proved that rabbits had no more chance of living
there than snakes in Ireland. And with regard to the salubrity of
the climate, the first settlers lived so long that they were
absolutely tired of life. Let him look at the cemetery, if he could
find it. After thirty years of settlement it was almost uninhabited
--neglected and overgrown with tussocks and scrub for want of use.
It will be gathered from this statement of the Principal Inhabitant
that Gippsland had really been discovered and settled about thirty
years before; but mountains and sea divided it from the outside
world, and, on account of the intense drowsiness and inactivity which
the delicious air and even temperature of the climate produced, the
land and its inhabitants had been forgotten and unnoticed until it
had been rediscovered, and its praises sung by the enterprising
Minister of the Crown before mentioned.
Following the example of the cautious cat when introduced into a
strange house, I investigated every corner of the district as far as
the nature of the country would permit; and I found that it contained
three principal corners or villages about three miles apart, at each
of which the police magistrate and clerk had to attend on certain
days, business or no business, generally the latter. It was, of
course, beneath the dignity of a court to walk officially so far
through the scrub; so the police magistrate was allowed sixty pounds
per annum in addition to his salary, and the clerk whom I relieved
fifty pounds, to defray the expense of keeping their horses.
"Away went Gilpin, and away
Went Gilpin's hat and wig."
I bought a waggonette, and then began to look for a horse to draw it.
As soon as my want became known it was pleasing to find so many of my
neighbours willing to supply it. Cox, the gaoler, said he knew of a
horse that would just suit me. It belonged to Binns, an
ex-constable, who was spending a month in gaol on account of a little
trouble that had come upon him. Cox invited me into his office, and
brought Binns out of his cell.
"Yes," said Binns "I have a horse, and there's not another like him
on the island," (these men always meant Van Diemen's Land when they
said "the island," forgetting occasionally that they had crossed the
straits, and were in a land of freedom) "as good a goer as ever
carried a saddle, or wore a collar. I wouldn't sell him on no
account, only you see I'm hard up just now."
"What is his age?" I enquired.
"Well, he's just rising ten. He has been used a bit hard, but you
won't overwork him, and he'll do all the law business you want as
easy as winking. He's the best trotter on the island, and has won
many a stake for me. When I took Johnny-come-lately to gaol in
Melbourne for stealing him, he brought me back in less time than any
horse ever did the distance before or since. And you can have him
dirt cheap. I'll take ten pounds for him, and he's worth twenty
pounds of any man's money."
Lovers' vows and horsedealers' oaths are never literally true; it is
safer to receive them as lies. I thought it would be prudent to try
this trotter before buying him, so Binns signed an order, in a very
shaky hand, to the man in charge of his farm, to let me have the
horse on trial. When I harnessed and put him in between the shafts
he was very quiet indeed. I took a whip, not for the purpose of
using it, but merely for show; a horse that had won so many races
would, of course, go without the lash.
When I was seated and requested him to start, he began walking very
slowly, as if he had a load of two tons weight behind him, and I
never weighed so much as that. I had to use the whip, and at last
after a good deal of reflection he began to trot, but not with any
speed; he did not want to win anything that day. I remarked that his
ears looked dead; no sound or sight of any kind disturbed the peace
of his mind. He evidently knew this world well and despised it;
nothing in it could excite his feelings any more.
Halfway up the Water Road I met Bill Mills, a carrier. He stopped
his team and looked at mine.
"Have you bought that horse, Mister?" he said.
"Not yet; I am only trying him," I replied. "Do you know him?"