[5] On the wallaby—on the tramp.
[6] Robert W. Service.
CHAPTER IV
TRAINING-CAMP LIFE
The town of Bendigo received a great increase of liveliness by having to accommodate four or five thousand soldiers.
It had known some lively times in the old gold days, but when its "yellow love" became thin, thousands of people went to other fields and the former flourishing city became a husk and as dull as only a declining mining city can become; but, as usually happens in old mining districts, when the gold gives out, the solid wealth of the soil in crop-growing capacity is developed, and Bendigo is prospering again through the labors of the tillers of the soil, if not by the delvings of its miners. Still, farmers have not the same habit of "blowing in their earnings" and are, admittedly, a little dull. There was a story that when the town council put a notice at the busy centre—"Walk Round Corners"—many of the farmers made sure of keeping the law by getting out of their vehicles and leading their horses round! The old-time miner was rather in the habit of smashing the unoffending lamp-post that barred his straight progress to the "pub." where his favorite brand of fire-water was on tap.
The Bendigoans will never forgive me for having failed to appreciate the fact that their Golden City was far ahead even of Melbourne. They would never believe that any one could make the mistake in regard to their city that an American did about an Australian seaport when he marvelled at our frankness in putting notice at the entrance to the harbor "Dead Slow," and he never learned, after months of residence, that said notice was really a warning to shipping.
But at any rate the soldiers livened things up. They were gathered from many States—their day was just "one damn thing after another"—sometimes varied a bit with a right turn instead of left, and sometimes we would salute to the right instead of the left—but when night came, fun must be had somehow, and Bendigo had to supply it.
We all had some intelligence, so after spending a whole day in employment that forbade our using the smallest atom, we would seek during the night a "safety-valve."