“I am writing this with rice water. Proceed at once to Sydney, see Winze and Clinskeen, Mining Agents, Pitt Street. There await you valuable papers. You can trust Winze entirely. Find Billy and take out Miner’s Right. Come up here and follow directions map other side paper. Billy does not know of reef. Obliterate your tracks. You may be watched in Sydney perhaps for other reasons. Travel incognito.”
On the other side of the paper, which had appeared blank before the application of the iodine, a roughly-drawn map now appeared, ornamented with dotted lines and arrows. From it, it appeared that if a certain direction was taken—shown by a dotted line—from a point indicated by a cross, a creek would be crossed running through a gorge. This creek followed up for a mile would be found to cut through a region marked “the golden cliffs.”
“It is plain,” remarked Claude after a few moments, “that I must first find Billy.”
“That,” replied his friend, who was smoking off his excitement, “that is clearly an important preliminary.”
CHAPTER IV.
PADDY’S MARKET.
HE newly-arrived traveller in Sydney is generally pestered by the urbane and well-meaning citizens of that London of the South by three or more questions. Until he has answered these, and done so to their satisfaction,—and the correct reply is the “Open Sesame” to their hospitable homes and hearts,—his polite inquisitors will look coldly upon him. This knowledge is worth much to those of our readers who intend visiting Sydney for the first time; and we highly recommend such persons to study what we have to say upon this highly important subject.
Many a time have we seen the learned scholar, the gallant soldier, and the wealthy globe-trotter turned back from the very gates of that Antipodean Paradise, the inner circle of Sydney society, from an inability to pass this curious test. As often we have seen the artful “new chum,” who has received a clear hint from his friends, and acted upon such, glide without exertion into the Elysium fields of Elizabeth Bay and Pott’s Point.
The principal of these questions, and the first one generally asked, is, “What do you think of our beautiful harbour?” (Time being precious in Sydney, the aspirate is seldom sounded in this case.)