3. Troubled sleep at night, with frightful dreams of being pelted by
Midas with lumps of gold, upwards of 106 lbs weight, and being unable to
pick them up, or of smaller nuggets sticking anywhere, but in your
breeches pocket.“
The wonderful Mount Alexander diggings were visited in September 10th.
Bendigo followed soon after, but remained for a time in obscurity. The
Jim Crow range diggings near the Loddon have recently attracted
attention. The following licenses were taken out at Ballarat; in
September 532, October 2261, November 885. At Mount Alexander there were
in October 221, in November 4678. The number of late on the ground has
ranged from 30,000 to 50,000. What will be the number on the return of
the Colonial emigration in Spring, and on the advent of the English gold
diggers? It is not easy to calculate the produce of the mines. In August
last we exported 18 ounces, and for July it rose to 180,000 ounces. The
escort is no criterion, as many men convey their gold to town
themselves. The amount raised in 24 years from the only paying English
gold mine in South America was worth £1,300,000. Only a few years ago
the total value of the world’s gold was estimated at nine millions a
year. Now Russia produces four millions and California above a dozen
millions annually.
Australia is eagerly competing with the American El Dorado, and it is
thought that in Victoria alone the yield for 1852 will very nearly equal
that of California, if not exceed it. But how long are our Gold Fields
to last? Some will talk of hundreds of years at the present amount. This
is impossible. It is highly improbable that as they are now wrought they
will continue twenty years. But even should they continue as briskly as
ever for four or five years more, this colony will be placed upon a very
comfortable footing. Even when the scrambling and wasteful diggings are
over, and the lottery runs out, it will be discovered that judicious and
systematic working of places not paying now, and even going over the old
claims again, will in the hands of gold companies profitably employ a
large population at excellent wages, or furnish individual miners a most
respectable maintenance. Having then no fears of the future, we can with
joyful voice exclaim, “Advance, Victoria.”
* * * * *
A few stories were given as connected with the discovery of certain gold
localities. A shepherd was the first who brought gold to Melbourne from
the Pyrenees. A boy at one of Dr. Barker’s huts, Mount Alexander, is
said to have brought in some shining stuff which he had found to his
father, and that originated a gold field. Gold districts have been made
known by holes being dug for posts. A horse’s hoof, or the wheel of a
dray, unfolds to view a glittering lump. A bullock driver spied a nugget
at the foot of a tree; he scratched up a handful of beauties, and the
gully was soon known as the rich Eagle Hawk. The celebrated Peg Leg
Gully yielded its gold through the surfacing of a man whose wooden legs
forbade him sinking. Part of Friar’s Creek became an Ophir through some
passing shearers who washed some of its sands in a tin plate. Golden
Gully, near there, gave up its hidden wealth through a man idly pulling
up a root of grass, under which was a lovely nest of nuggets. Mr. Gibson
is said to have been scratching with his knife on the banks of the
Bendigo, and accidentally turned up a piece of gold. Telling his men,
they feasted awhile by themselves upon this dainty repast. But I had
another story given me, which I must tell, although conscious that there
is a fearful scandal in it. Mr. Gibson’s shepherd there told his wife
privately of the treasure. She told it in the strictest confidence of
secresy to another woman, who conferred a similar favour upon a female
neighbour of hers, who might in the fulness of her heart have bound a
friend in the same ties of anti-revelation, and so it went on, I
suppose, till a man knew it, for it soon got blazed about far and near.