Ballarat—at length! The far-famed!—the wonder-town!—the capital of the kingdom of gold! A confused array of huts, tents, weatherboard houses, and stores huddled together, as if rained down from the sky, on the side of a hill partly covered with the iron-stemmed, sombre Eucalyptus. A brook, with yellow waters hurrying down between green and grassy banks. Crowds of silent, preoccupied looking men anxiously engaged in what, to the new-comers, seemed mysterious mining operations. Some were standing mid-leg deep in the creek, protected by thigh boots, rocking curious wooden cases, which looked like children's cradles, and which they afterwards found were called by that name. Policemen and mounted troopers went to and fro among them, or issued from an encampment higher on the hill—which was evidently the headquarters of the executive department. Mud-stained, bearded, and roughly dressed were the greater part of the population; Lance thought he had never seen so many ruffianly-looking fellows before. A marsh, filled with waving reeds, lay on a plateau a short distance to the westward of the field. The green banks looked pleasant to the eye, shaded, as they were, by wide-spreading trees—thicker of foliage than the others.
'If you think well, sir, we might just as well pitch our camp here,' said Jack. 'It's away from the crowd like, and I'll manage to make it snug and home-like in a week or two. We can leave the Missis here while you and I look out for a claim, as they call it.'
So they made their temporary home by the side of Lake Wendouree, as it came afterwards to be called, little dreaming that the day would come when the marsh would be dammed and deepened, when, steamers would ply upon its surface, and boat races and regattas take place thereon, with a thousand school-children holding high festival on its banks.
However, these developments were in the future. Nothing was to be seen now but the waving reeds, the green grass, and a great black log lying on the ground, by the side of which they pitched the tent, as being a species of shelter and handy for purposes of cookery. Then the men wandered through the diggings, talking to the miners, as opportunity offered, and trying to learn something about the recognised method of making a commencement to dig gold.
Chance favoured them the day after they arrived, by the occurrence of a dramatic incident, instructive in its way, as it turned out.
They were walking along the side of the creek, looking at a curiously-silent toiling crowd of 20,000 men, who, working in very small and shallow claims, 16 feet square, on the celebrated 'Jewellers' Point,' were turning up gold in handfuls, panfuls, and, in some instances, nearly bucketfuls.
Suddenly every man raised his head and shouted 'Joe.' Jack and Lance thought the whole crowd had gone mad, as they hasted to join in the chorus. They noticed, however, a dozen or more individuals leave their work and depart unobtrusively. A moment after, a man came running desperately down a gully which led to the creek, hotly pursued by two troopers. He wormed his way among the holes, where the horsemen could not well follow him, and seemed in a fair way of escaping, when he ran nearly into the arms of a constable on foot, whom, coming from another direction, he had not seen. This official, a wily and active person, promptly secured him. He was then handcuffed and led off to the camp, where, to the great astonishment of the Englishmen, who followed to see the end of the affair, he was chained to a log by the leg; evidently a desperate criminal, they decided.
Lance interrogated one of the troopers who remained by the prisoner. 'I suppose he's a hardened offender. Is it for murder or robbery? or only horse-stealing?'
The trooper laughed. 'Well, he ain't what you might call a desprit bad 'un, though he's broke the law. He's been diggin' without a license.'