THE DIGGINGS
Of the history of the discovery of gold in Australia I believe few are
ignorant; it is therefore necessary that my recapitulation of it should
be as brief as possible. The first supposed discovery took place some
sixty years ago, at Port Jackson. A convict made known to Governor
Phillip the existence of an auriferous region near Sydney, and on the
locality being examined, particles of real gold-dust were found. Every
one was astonished, and several other spots were tried without success.
Suspicion was now excited, and the affair underwent a thorough
examination, which elicited the following facts. The convict, in
the hope of obtaining his pardon as a reward, had filed a guinea and
some brass buttons, which, judiciously mixed, made a tolerable pile of
gold-dust, and this he carefully distributed over a small tract of
sandy land. In lieu of the expected freedom, his ingenuity was rewarded
with close confinement and other punishments. Thus ended the first idea
of a gold-field in those colonies.
In 1841 the Rev. W. B. Clarke expressed his belief in the existence of
gold in the valley of the Macquarie, and this opinion was greatly
confirmed by the observations of European geologists on the Uralian
Mountains. In 1849 an indisputable testimony was added to these
opinions by a Mr. Smith, who was then engaged in some iron works, near
Berrima, and who brought a splendid specimen of gold in quartz to the
Colonial Secretary. Sir C. A. Fitzroy evinced little sympathy with the
discovery, and in a despatch to Lord Grey upon the subject, expressed
his opinion that "any investigation that the Government might institute
with the view of ascertaining whether gold did in reality exist to any
extent or value in that part of the colony where it was supposed
from its geological formation that metal would be found, would only
tend to agitate the public mind, &c."
Suddenly, in 1851, at the time that the approaching opening of the
Crystal Palace was the principal subject of attention in England, the
colonies of Australia were in a state of far greater excitement, as the
news spread like wild-fire, far and wide, that gold was really there.
To Edward Hammond Hargreaves be given the honour of this discovery.
This gentleman was an old Australian settler, just returned from a trip
to California, where he had been struck by the similarity of the
geological formation of the mountain ranges in his adopted country to
that of the Sacramento district. On his return, he immediately searched
for the precious metal; Ophir, the Turon, and Bathurst well repaid his
labour. Thus commenced the gold diggings of New South Wales.
The good people of Victoria were rather jealous of the importance given
by these events to the other colony. Committees were formed, and
rewards were offered for the discovery of a gold-field in Victoria. The
announcement of the Clunes Diggings in July, 1851, was the
result; they were situated on a tributary of the Loddon. On September 8,
those of Ballarat, and on the 10th those of Mount Alexander
completely satisfied the most sceptical as to the vast mineral wealth
of the colony. Bendigo soon was heard of; and gully after gully
successively attracted the attention of the public by the display of
their golden treasures.
The names given to these gullies open a curious field of speculation.
Many have a sort of digger's tradition respecting their first
discovery. The riches of Peg Leg Gully were brought to light through
the surfacing of three men with wooden legs, who were unable to sink a
hole in the regular way. Golden Gully was discovered by a man who,
whilst lounging on the ground and idly pulling up the roots of grass
within his reach, found beneath one a nest of golden nuggets. Eagle
Hawk derives its name from the number of eagle-hawks seen in the gully
before the sounds of the pick and shovel drove them away. Murderer's
Flat and Choke'em Gully tell their own tale. The Irish clan together in
Tipperary Gully. A party of South Australians gave the name of their
chief town to Adelaide Gully. The Iron Bark is so called from
the magnificent trees which abound there. Long, Piccaninny, and Dusty
Gully need no explanation. The Jim Crow ranges are appropriately so
called, for it is only by keeping up a sort of Jim Crow dancing
movement that one can travel about there; it is the roughest piece of
country at the diggings. White Horse Gully obtained its name from a
white horse whose hoofs, whilst the animal in a rage was plunging here
and there, flung up the surface ground and disclosed the treasures
beneath. In this gully was found the famous "John Bull Nugget," lately
exhibited in London. The party to whom it belonged consisted of three
poor sailors; the one who actually discovered it had only been a
fortnight at the diggings. The nugget weighed forty-five pounds, and
was only a few inches beneath the surface. It was sold for 5,000 pounds; a
good morning's work that!
Let us take a stroll round Forest Creek--what a novel scene!--thousands
of human beings engaged in digging, wheeling, carrying, and washing,
intermingled with no little grumbling, scolding and swearing.
We approach first the old Post-office Square; next our eye glances
down Adelaide Gully, and over the Montgomery and White Hills,
all pretty well dug up; now we pass the Private Escort Station, and
Little Bendigo. At the junction of Forest, Barker, and Campbell Creeks
we find the Commissioners' quarters--this is nearly five miles from
our starting point. We must now return to Adelaide Gully, and keep
alongside Adelaide Creek, till we come to a high range of rocks, which
we cross, and then find ourselves near the head-waters of Fryer's
Creek. Following that stream towards the Loddon, we pass the
interesting neighbourhood of Golden Gully, Moonlight Flat, Windlass and
Red Hill; this latter which covers about two acres of ground is so
called from the colour of the soil, it was the first found, and is
still considered as the richest auriferous spot near Mount Alexander.
In the wet season, it was reckoned that on Moonlight Flat one man was
daily buried alive from the earth falling into his hole. Proceeding
north-east in the direction of Campbell's Creek, we again reach the
Commissioners' tent.
The principal gullies about Bendigo are Sailors's, Napoleon,
Pennyweight, Peg Leg, Growler's, White Horse, Eagle Hawk, Californian,
American, Derwent, Long, Picaninny, Iron Bark, Black Man's, Poor Man's,
Dusty, Jim Crow, Spring, and Golden--also Sydney Flat, and Specimen
Hill--Haverton Gully, and the Sheep-wash. Most of these places are
well-ransacked and tunnelled, but thorough good wages may always be
procured by tin dish washing in deserted holes, or surface washing.
It is not only the diggers, however, who make money at the Gold Fields.
Carters, carpenters, storemen, wheelwrights, butchers, shoemakers, &c.,
usually in the long run make a fortune quicker than the diggers
themselves, and certainly with less hard work or risk of life. They can
always get from one to two pounds a day without rations, whereas they may
dig for weeks and get nothing. Living is not more expensive than in
Melbourne: meat is generally from 4d. to 6d. a pound, flour about 1s. 6d
a pound, (this is the most expensive article in house-keeping
there,) butter must be dispensed with, as that is seldom less than
4s. a pound, and only successful diggers can indulge in such articles as
cheese, pickles, ham, sardines, pickled salmon, or spirits, as
all these things, though easily procured if you have gold to throw
away, are expensive, the last-named article (diluted with water or
something less innoxious) is only to be obtained for 30s. a bottle.
The stores, which are distinguished by a flag, are numerous and well
stocked. A new style of lodging and boarding house is in great vogue.
It is a tent fitted up with stringy bark couches, ranged down each side
the tent, leaving a narrow passage up the middle. The lodgers are
supplied with mutton, damper, and tea, three times a day, for the
charge of 5s. a meal, and 5s. for the bed; this is by the week, a
casual guest must pay double, and as 18 inches is on an average
considered ample width to sleep in, a tent 24 feet long will bring in a
good return to the owner.
The stores at the diggings are large tents, generally square or oblong,
and everything required by a digger can be obtained for money, from
sugar-candy to potted anchovies; from East India pickles to Bass's pale
ale; from ankle jack boots to a pair of stays; from a baby's cap to a
cradle; and every apparatus for mining, from a pick to a needle. But
the confusion--the din--the medley--what a scene for a shop
walker! Here lies a pair of herrings dripping into a bag of sugar, or a
box of raisins; there a gay-looking bundle of ribbons beneath two
tumblers, and a half-finished bottle of ale. Cheese and butter, bread
and yellow soap, pork and currants, saddles and frocks, wide-awakes and
blue serge shirts, green veils and shovels, baby linen and tallow
candles, are all heaped indiscriminately together; added to which,
there are children bawling, men swearing, store-keeper sulky, and last,
not LEAST, women's tongues going nineteen to the dozen.
Most of the store-keepers are purchasers of gold either for cash or in
exchange for goods, and many are the tricks from which unsuspecting
diggers suffer. One great and outrageous trick is to weigh the parcels
separately, or divide the whole, on the excuse that the weight would be
too much for the scales; and then, on adding up the grains and
pennyweights, the sellers often lose at least half an ounce. On one
occasion, out of seven pounds weight, a party once lost an ounce and
three quarters in this manner. There is also the old method of false
beams--one in favour of the purchaser--and here, unless the
seller weighs in both pans, he loses considerably. Another mode of
cheating is to have glass pans resting on a piece of green baize; under
this baize, and beneath the pan which holds the weights, is a wetted
sponge, which causes that pan to adhere to the baize, and consequently
it requires more gold to make it level; this, coupled with the false
reckoning, is ruinous to the digger. In town, the Jews have a system of
robbing a great deal from sellers before they purchase the gold-dust
(for in these instances it must be DUST): it is thrown into a zinc pan
with slightly raised sides, which are well rubbed over with grease; and
under the plea of a careful examination, the purchaser shakes and rubs
the dust, and a considerable quantity adheres to the sides. A commoner
practice still is for examiners of gold-dust to cultivate long
finger-nails, and, in drawing the fingers about it, gather some up.
Sly grog selling is the bane of the diggings. Many--perhaps
nine-tenths--of the diggers are honest industrious men, desirous of
getting a little there as a stepping-stone to independence elsewhere;
but the other tenth is composed of outcasts and transports--the refuse
of Van Diemen's Land--men of the most depraved and abandoned
characters, who have sought and gained the lowest abyss of crime, and
who would a short time ago have expiated their crimes on a scaffold.
They generally work or rob for a space, and when well stocked with
gold, retire to Melbourne for a month or so, living in drunkenness and
debauchery. If, however, their holiday is spent at the diggings, the
sly grog-shop is the last scene of their boisterous career. Spirit
selling is strictly prohibited; and although Government will license a
respectable public-house on the ROAD, it is resolutely refused ON the
diggings. The result has been the opposite of that which it was
intended to produce. There is more drinking and rioting at the diggings
than elsewhere, the privacy and risk gives the obtaining it an
excitement which the diggers enjoy as much as the spirit itself; and
wherever grog is sold on the sly, it will sooner or later be the scene
of a riot, or perhaps murder. Intemperance is succeeded by quarrelling
and fighting, the neighbouring tents report to the police, and the
offenders are lodged in the lock-up; whilst the grog-tent, spirits,
wine, &c., are seized and taken to the Commissioners. Some of
the stores, however, manage to evade the law rather cleverly--as
spirits are not SOLD, "my friend" pays a shilling more for his fig of
tobacco, and his wife an extra sixpence for her suet; and they smile at
the store-man, who in return smiles knowingly at them, and then glasses
are brought out, and a bottle produced, which sends forth NOT a
fragrant perfume on the sultry air.
It is no joke to get ill at the diggings; doctors make you pay for it.
Their fees are--for a consultation, at their own tent, ten shillings;
for a visit out, from one to ten pounds, according to time and
distance. Many are regular quacks, and these seem to flourish best. The
principal illnesses are weakness of sight, from the hot winds and sandy
soil, and dysentery, which is often caused by the badly-cooked food,
bad water, and want of vegetables.
The interior of the canvas habitation of the digger is desolate enough;
a box on a block of wood forms a table, and this is the only furniture;
many dispense with that. The bedding, which is laid on the ground,
serves to sit upon. Diogenes in his tub would not have looked more
comfortless than any one else. Tin plates and pannicans, the
same as are used for camping up, compose the breakfast, dinner, and tea
service, which meals usually consist of the same dishes--mutton,
damper, and tea.
In some tents the soft influence of our sex is pleasingly apparent: the
tins are as bright as silver, there are sheets as well as blankets on
the beds, and perhaps a clean counterpane, with the addition of a dry
sack or piece of carpet on the ground; whilst a pet cockatoo, chained
to a perch, makes noise enough to keep the "missus" from feeling lonely
when the good man is at work. Sometimes a wife is at first rather a
nuisance; women get scared and frightened, then cross, and commence a
"blow up" with their husbands; but all their railing generally ends in
their quietly settling down to this rough and primitive style of
living, if not without a murmur, at least to all appearance with the
determination to laugh and bear it. And although rough in their
manners, and not over select in their address, the digger seldom
wilfully injures a woman; in fact, a regular Vandemonian will, in his
way, play the gallant with as great a zest as a fashionable about
town--at any rate, with more sincerity of heart.
Sunday is kept at the diggings in a very orderly manner; and
among the actual diggers themselves, the day of rest is taken in a
VERBATIM sense. It is not unusual to have an established clergyman
holding forth near the Commissioners' tent and almost within hearing
will be a tub orator expounding the origin of evil, whilst a "mill" (a
fight with fisticuffs) or a dog fight fills up the background.
But night at the diggings is the characteristic time: murder
here--murder there--revolvers cracking--blunderbusses bombing--rifles
going off--balls whistling--one man groaning with a broken leg--another
shouting because he couldn't find the way to his hole, and a
third equally vociferous because he has tumbled into one--this man
swearing--an other praying--a party of bacchanals chanting various
ditties to different time and tune, or rather minus both. Here is one
man grumbling because he has brought his wife with him, another ditto
because he has left his behind, or sold her for an ounce of gold or a
bottle of rum. Donnybrook Fair is not to be compared to an evening at
Bendigo.
Success at the diggings is like drawing lottery tickets--the
blanks far outnumber the prizes; still, with good health, strength, and
above all perseverance, it is strange if a digger does not in the end
reap a reward for his labour. Meanwhile, he must endure almost
incredible hardships. In the rainy season, he must not murmur if
compelled to work up to his knees in water, and sleep on the wet
ground, without a fire, in the pouring rain, and perhaps no shelter
above him more waterproof than a blanket or a gum tree; and this not
for once only, but day after day, night after night. In the summer, he
must work hard under a burning sun, tortured by the mosquito and the
little stinging March flies, or feel his eyes smart and his throat grow
dry and parched, as the hot winds, laden with dust, pass over him. How
grateful now would be a draught from some cold sparkling streamlet;
but, instead, with what sort of water must he quench his thirst? Much
the same, gentle reader, as that which runs down the sides of a dirty
road on a rainy day, and for this a shilling a bucket must be paid.
Hardships such as these are often the daily routine of a digger's life;
yet, strange to say, far from depressing the spirits or weakening the
frame, they appear in most cases to give strength and energy to
both. This is principally owing to the climate, which even in the wet
season is mild and salubrious.
Perhaps nothing will speak better for the general order that prevails
at the diggings, than the small amount of physical force maintained
there by Government to keep some thousands of persons of all ages,
classes, characters, religions and countries in good humour with the
laws and with one another. The military force numbers 130, officers and
men; the police about 300.
The Government escort is under the control of Mr. Wright, Chief
Commissioner; it consists of about forty foot and sixty mounted police,
with the usual complement of inspectors and sergeants; their uniform is
blue--with white facings, their head-quarters are by the
Commissioners' tent, Forest Creek.
The private escort uniform is a plain blue frock coat and trowsers. It
is under the superintendence of Mr. Wilkinson; the head-quarters are at
Montgomery Hill, Forest Creek. Both these escorts charge one per cent
for conveying gold.
For the Victoria diggings, there is a Chief Commissioner, one
Acting Resident Commissioner; one Assistant Commissioner at Ballarat,
one at Fryer's Creek, five at Forest Creek, and six at Bendigo.
Provision is made by Government for the support, at the mines, of two
clergymen of each of the four State paid churches of England, Scotland,
Rome, and Wesleyan, at a salary of 300 pounds a year.