A new scene breaks upon us now, patient reader. We are among the
antipodes in that vast and wonderful region where the kangaroo reigns in
the wilderness, and gold is sown broadcast in the land. The men we see
are, to a large extent, the same men we saw before leaving the shores of
Old England, but they are wonderfully changed! Red flannel shirts, long
boots, leathern belts, felt hats, and unshorn chins meet us at every
turn; so do barrows and pick-axes and shovels. It seems as if we had
got into a region inhabited solely by navvies. Many of them, however,
appear to be very gentlemanly navvies!
There are no ladies here; scarcely any females at all, for we have left
the thriving settlements of Australia far behind us, and are now
wandering over the Daisy Hill gold-diggings. The particular section of
that busy spot to which our attention is directed at this moment, is
named the "Kangaroo Flats."
None but strong men can get on here. Let us go forward, and see how
they obtain this yellow metal that turns the world upside down!
Here is a man issuing from a hole in the earth close at our feet, like a
huge ground-squirrel. He is tall; stout, and fair, with broad shoulders
and a fine manly countenance, which is ornamented by a thick beard and
moustache of glossy yellow hair. The silken curly hair of this man,
contrasted with his great size and manliness, is very striking. He
seats himself on a mass of clay, wipes the perspiration from his
forehead, and shouts to some one down in the earth.
"Hallo! Jack, let's hoist out the stuff now."
"Ay, ay, Harry," replies a strong voice, with a sailor-like ring in it,
from below, "I'll be on deck in a jiffy."
Let us descend and look at this miner. The hole is narrow and deep; at
the bottom of it is a dark tunnel two feet broad, between two and three
feet high, and twenty-five feet long. At the farther extremity of it
crouches a man with a pickaxe in his hands, and a candle beside him. It
is a very awkward position in which to work, and the result is that this
man pants and blows and sighs, and sometimes laughs quietly to himself
at the comicality of his attitudes, while the perspiration pours over
his face in large beads continuously. It seems very hard work, and so,
indeed, it is, but the man is an unusually big and strong fellow, larger
even than his fair companion above ground. His hair is short, black,
and curly, as are his beard and whiskers, but at this moment his whole
head and face are so besmeared with clay that his aspect is piebald and
not more becoming than his attitude. Still, there is a massive grandeur
in the outline of his features which cannot be destroyed by
incrustations of clay, although his complexion is obscured by it.
Like his comrade above, his costume consists of flannel shirt, dark
trousers, and big boots. His shirt sleeves being rolled up to the
shoulders, display a pair of arms that a sculptor might gaze on with
admiration.
This strong man pants and gasps more than ever with the heat as he
drives the pick and tears up the earth for gold. Presently the candle
burns dim; the air is getting foul.
"Hallo, the candle's going out!" cries the dark miner, scrambling
towards the bottom of the shaft on his hands and knees.
"Ha! time to take a mouthful o' fresh air, Jack," remarks the fair
miner, looking into the hole.
In another moment a wild dishevelled clay-bespattered figure comes to
the surface, rises like a giant out of the earth, and the countenance
and proportions of our friend John Bax are revealed, in spite of the
strange costume and black moustache and beard and incrustations of clay
which more than half disguise him.
"Whew! how hot it is," said Bax, as he stepped out of the hole.
"You may say that," observed his friend, rising; "but come along, Jack,
let's get up the stuff and wash out as much as we can before dinner.
Mind, you've got to write home this afternoon, and won't be able to help
me much in the evening."
"Come along then," said Bax, going to work again with redoubled energy.
There was a windlass over the hole by which the clay was raised to the
surface. Bax wrought at this, and his mate went below to fill the
buckets. Then they washed it out, and flooded away cartloads of
worthless soil, until a small residue of clear shining particles
remained behind. This they gathered carefully together, added it to the
bag that held their fortune, remarked that there were "no nuggets this
time," and that it was "hard work and little pay;" after which they
flung down their tools, washed their hands and faces, and went into
their tent to dine.
Thus did Bax and his mate (an old acquaintance unexpectedly met with
after arrival in Australia) dig, and sweat, and toil for gold.
But Bax and his friend worked thus hard, only because it was their
nature so to work at whatever their hands found to do. They had not set
their hearts upon the gold.
After dinner Harry went out to drive his pick and shovel. Bax remained
in the tent to drive the quill.
That night the two friends lay chatting and smoking in their tent after
supper, with a solitary candle between them, and the result of the day's
work--a small pile of shining dust--before them.
"We'll not make our fortunes at this rate," observed Harry, with a sigh.
"There's no saying what good fortune may be in store for us," observed
Bax; "but put away the gold, it will do us no good to gaze at it."
Harry rolled the little heap in a piece of paper, and tossed it into the
leathern bag which contained their earnings.
"Come now," said he, replenishing his pipe, "let's hear the letter, Bax,
who d'ye say's the friend you've written to?"
"He's a boy," said Bax, "Tommy Bogey by name, of which name, by the way,
he has no reason to be proud--but he's a first-rate fellow, and I fear
will have set me down as a faithless friend, for I left him without
saying good-bye, and the letter I wrote to him on my arrival here went
to the bottom with the unfortunate ship that carried it. However, here
is the epistle. I'm open to correction, Harry, if you think any part of
it not ship-shape."
"All right," said Harry, "go ahead."