"The alluvial diggings at Gympie were soon worked out, and reef, or quartz, mining followed. In fact, the reef mining began while placer mining was at its height and the alluvial diggers were in the full tide of success. The placers were, and the reefs are, very rich, and many of the workings have paid enormously to their owners. Of course where there have been so many prizes there has been a proportionate number of blanks, and there is no telling how many thousands of men have left Gympie poorer than when they came here.
"The town consists practically of a single street which straggles up and down for more than a mile, with here and there an attempt to run a lateral street in the direction of a mine or a crushing-mill. Most of the houses are of wood, and scattered over the hills are the huts of the miners, in order that they may be near the places where they are employed. This does not prevent their coming into the town in the evening, and occasionally making it a very lively place. In the early days there were the usual disorderly scenes of the centre of a 'gold rush;' and one of the old inhabitants told us that a few months after the discovery became known, it seemed as though half the bad characters in Australia had congregated there.
A GOLD-MINER'S HOME.
"When the alluvial diggings had been exhausted, the wandering miners disappeared and wended their way to newly reported fields. The place became more orderly, and then the abandoned claims were occupied by the Chinese, the most patient workers the world ever saw. They are contented to take up what white men consider unprofitable, and, considering all their disadvantages, they have done wonderfully well. They are not allowed to enter any gold-field until it has been open for two years; and there is a poll-tax of £10 a head upon every Chinese who enters the colony. They are generally peaceable, but occasionally they quarrel among themselves over the right to work a certain spot, and then the noise they make is something tremendous."
A CHINESE DISCUSSION.
From Gympie our friends went by rail to Maryborough, a seaport town on the Mary River, twenty-five miles above its mouth, and one hundred and eighty from Brisbane. The railway carried them past many sugar plantations, and they learned that Maryborough is the outlet of a considerable district devoted to sugar cultivation, the annual product being not far from five thousand tons. Large quantities of lumber are exported from Maryborough, and there is also a considerable business in wool and hides from the cattle and sheep stations in the country towards the interior.