A Boy's Voyage Round the World

by Samuel Smiles

I am not at all up in the statistics of the colony, and cannot tell the population or the number of inhabited houses in Ballarat.[13] But it is an immense place, second in importance in the colony only to Melbourne. Big though it be, like most of these up-country towns, Ballarat originated in a rush. It was only in September, 1851, that a blacksmith at Buningong, named Hiscocks, who had long been searching for gold, traced a mountain-torrent back into the hills towards the north, and came upon the rich lode which soon became known as the "Ballarat Diggings." When the rumour of the discovery got abroad, there was a great rush of people to the place, accompanied by the usual disorders; but they gradually settled down, and Ballarat was founded. The whole soil of the place was found to contain more or less gold. It was gathered in the ranges, on the flats, in the water-courses, and especially in the small veins of blue clay, lying almost above the so-called "pipeclay." The gold was to all appearance quite pure, and was found in rolled or water-course irregular lumps of various sizes, from a quarter or half an ounce in weight, sometimes incorporated with round pebbles of quartz, which appeared to have formed the original matrix.

The digging was at first for the most part alluvial, but when skilled miners arrived from England, operations were begun on a much larger scale, until now it is conducted upon a regular system, by means of costly machinery and highly-organised labour. To give an idea of the extensive character of the operations, I may mention that one company, the Band of Hope, has erected machinery of the value of 70,000l. The main shaft, from which the various workings branch out, is 420 feet deep; and 350 men are employed in and about the mine. It may also be mentioned that the deeper the workings have gone, the richer has been the yield of gold. This one company has, in a comparatively short time, raised gold worth over half a million sterling; the quantity produced by the Ballarat mines, since the discovery of gold in September, 1851, to the end of 1866, having been worth about one hundred and thirty millions sterling.

The morning after my arrival in Ballarat I proceeded to survey the town, I was certainly surprised at the fine streets, the large buildings, and the number of people walking along the broad pathways. Perhaps my surprise was magnified by the circumstance that nearly fifteen months had passed since I had been in a large town; and, after Majorca, Ballarat seemed to me like a capital. After wandering about the streets for half an hour, I looked into the Court-house, where an uninteresting case of drunkenness was being heard. I next went into the adjoining large building, which I found to be the Public Library. The commodious reading-room was amply supplied with books, magazines, and newspapers; and here I amused myself for an hour in reading a new book. Over the mantel-piece of the large room hangs an oil painting of Prince Alfred, representing him and his "mates" after the visit they had made to one of the Ballarat mines. This provision of excellent reading-rooms—free and open to all—seems to me an admirable feature of the Victorian towns. They are the best sort of supplement to the common day-schools; and furnish a salutary refuge for all sober-minded men, from the temptations of the grog-shops. But besides the Public Library, there is also the Mechanics' Institute, in Sturt Street; a fine building, provided also with a large library, and all the latest English newspapers, free to strangers.

The features of the town that most struck me in the course of the day were these. First, Sturt Street: a fine, broad street, at least three chains wide. On each side are large handsome shops, and along the middle of the road runs a broad strip of garden, with large trees and well-kept beds of flowers. Sturt Street is on an incline; and at the top of it runs Ledyard Street, at right angles, also a fine broad street. It contains the principal banks, of which I counted nine, all handsome stone buildings, the London Chartered, built on a foundation of blue-stone, being perhaps the finest of them in an architectural point of view. Close to it is the famous "Corner." What the Bourse is in Paris, Wall Street in New York, and the Exchange in London—that is the "Corner" at Ballarat. Under the verandah of the Unicorn Hotel, and close to the Exchange Buildings, there is a continual swarm of speculators, managers of companies, and mining men, standing about in groups, very like so many circles of betting-men on a race-course. Here all the mining swindles originate. Specimens of gold-bearing quartz are shown, shares are bought and sold, new schemes are ventilated, and old ones revived. Many fortunes have been lost and won on that bit of pavement.

One man is reckoned as good as another in Ballarat. Even the cad of a baker's boy has the chance of making "a pile," while the swell broker, who dabbles in mines and reefs, may be beggared in a few days. As one of the many instances of men growing suddenly rich by speculation here, I may mention the following. A short time since, a cobbler at Ballarat had a present made to him of twenty scrip in a company that was looking so bad that the shares had become unsaleable. The cobbler knew nothing of the mine, but he held the scrip. Not only so, but he bought more at a shilling or two apiece, and he went on accumulating them, until at the end of the year he had scraped together some two or three hundred. At length he heard that gold had been struck. He went to a bank, deposited his scrip certificates, and raised upon them all the money he could borrow. He bought more shares. They trebled in value. He held on. They trebled again. At last, when the gold was being got almost by the bucket, and a great mania for the shares had set in, the cobbler sold out at 250l. a share, and found himself a rich man. The mine was, I think, the Sir William Don, one of the most successful in Ballarat, now yielding a dividend of about 2l. per share per month, or a return of about 500 per cent. on the paid-up capital.

But to return to my description of Ballarat. The town lies in a valley between two slopes, spreading up on both sides and over the summits. Each summit is surmounted by a lofty tower, built by the Eastern and Western Fire Brigades. These towers command a view of the whole place, and are continually occupied by watchmen, who immediately give the alarm on the outbreak of fire. The people here say that the Ballarat Fire Brigade is the smartest in the southern hemisphere; though the engines are all manned by volunteers. And a fire must be a serious matter in Ballarat, where so many of the buildings—stores as well as dwellings—are built entirely of wood. Many of the streets are even paved with wood.

In the afternoon I ascended the western hill, from which I obtained a fine bird's-eye view of the town. The large, broad streets, at right angles to each other, looked well laid out, neat, and clean looking. What seemed strangest of all was the lazy puffing of the engines over the claims, throwing out their white jets of steam. But for the width of the streets, and the cleanness of the place, one might almost have taken Ballarat for a manufacturing town in Yorkshire, though they have no flower gardens along the middle of their streets!

In the evening I went to the opera—for Ballarat has an opera! The piece was 'Faust,' and was performed by Lyster and Smith's company from Melbourne. The performers did their best, but I cannot say they are very strong in opera yet at the Antipodes.

After thoroughly doing Ballarat, I set out on my return to Majorca. There was the same jolting as before, but this time the coach did not stick in the mud. On reaching Clunes, I resolved to walk straight to Majorca across the plain, instead of going the roundabout way by the road. But the straightest route is not always the shortest, as my experience on this occasion proved. I had scarcely got fairly into the plain before I found myself in the midst of a succession of crab-holes. These are irregular depressions, about a yard or so apart, formed by the washing up of the soil by eddies during floods, and now the holes were all full of water. It was a difficult and tedious process to work one's way through amongst them, for they seemed to dovetail into one another, and often I had to make a considerable détour to get round the worst of them. This crab-holey ground continued for about four miles, after which I struck into the bush, making for the ranges, and keeping Mount Greenock and Mount Glasgow before me as landmarks. Not being a good bushman, I suspect I went several miles out of my way. However, by dint of steady walking, I contrived to do the sixteen miles in about four hours; but if I have ever occasion to walk from Clunes again, I will take care to take the roundabout road, and not to make the journey en zigzag round crab-holes and through the bush.

Among the other places about here that I have visited were Talbot, about seven miles distant, and Avoca, about twenty. One of the occasions of my going to Talbot was to attend a ball given there, and another to attend a great fête for the benefit of the Amherst Hospital. Talbot gives its name to the county, though by no means the largest town in it. The town is very neat and tidy, and contains some good stone and brick buildings. It consists of one principal street, with several little offshoots.