A majority of the men met with on the gold-fields of California and
Australia, are universally, or at least generally, unlike those they
have left behind them in the lands of their birth. Most gold-diggers
are men of character, of some kind or other; and have, through their
follies or misfortunes, made for themselves a history. There will
almost always be found some passage of interest in the story of their
lives--often in the event itself, which has forced them into exile, and
caused them to wander thousands of miles away from their homes and their
friends.
When it is further remembered: that the principle amusement of the most
respectable of the gold-diggers, is that of holding social converse in
their tents, or around their evening camp-fires, it will appear less
strange, that amongst so many "men of character" one should become
acquainted with not a few "romances of real life"--such as that of the
"Vandemonian" who became my associate in the "sweet vale of Avoca," and
which is here recorded, as one of many a "convict's story," of which I
have been the confidant.
Volume Three, Chapter V.