“I suppose you had no railways at that time to facilitate travel,” one of the youths remarked.
“No; there were no railways and the only way of travel was by the ordinary route, and very ordinary it was in many places. It was not a graded and macadamized road such as you find in England, but simply a rough pathway, principally of nature’s manufacture. It was full of ruts and gullies, very muddy in the rainy season, and terribly dusty in the dry times. Travelers went to the mines in all sorts of ways, some on foot, and some by ox and horse wagons, and if they had plenty of money, and were determined to have luxury and speed at whatever cost, they traveled by stage-coach. An American firm, Cobb & Company, came here in the early days and established lines of stage-coaches, first from Melbourne to the mines, and afterwards all over Australia. Cobb’s coaches are still running on some of the interior routes that are not covered by railway, but wherever the locomotive has put in its appearance it has forced them out of the way.”
“I have read somewhere,” said Harry, “that traveling on the road to the mines was not very safe in those days.”
“That depended somewhat on the way one was going,” was the reply. “Travelers going towards the mines were not very liable to attack, as they were not supposed to have any money, but it was not so with those coming from the mines to the coast. The natural supposition was that an individual moving in the direction of Melbourne had ‘made his pile’ and was on his way home. The country was infested with ex-convicts and men who had escaped from convict service in Australia and Tasmania. They were known as ‘bushrangers,’ and great numbers of them were along the routes to the mines. They lived in caves among the hills, or in the open air, and occasionally took shelter in out stations on sheep runs. They supplied themselves with food by stealing sheep and cattle from the ranches, and by robbing wagons laden with provisions on their way to the mines. Clothing they obtained by the same system of plunder, and whenever the haunt of a gang was discovered by the police it was almost invariably found to be well stocked with provisions and clothing.
“These were the fellows that made life miserable to the miners returning to the coast. The bushrangers traveled in gangs of all the way from five to fifteen or twenty, and sometimes more, and each gang was led by the most desperate man among them. They used to ‘stick up’ solitary travelers, or travelers in groups of a dozen or more. They lay in wait at turnings of the road or near the summits of hills, and generally took their victims by surprise. If a man submitted quietly to be robbed, he was generally left unharmed, but if he made any resistance, he was knocked senseless or shot down without the least compunction. Sometimes these gangs were so numerous that hardly a traveler escaped them. Then there would be a lull in the business for a time and the road would be particularly safe.
“Once a week or so, gold was sent down from the mines by the government authorities; and of course it was accompanied by a strong and well-armed escort of police. Many people entrusted their gold to the escort, paying a high premium for the guarantee of safe delivery in Melbourne. A good many people used to accompany the escort for the protection it afforded, but the number became so great and troublesome that the government at length refused to permit travelers to go in that way unless they paid the same premium on the gold that they carried as was paid by those who shipped the precious metal. Not infrequently the bushrangers attacked the government escort, and on several occasions they were successful.
“It was a piece of good fortune that, as a general thing, the bushrangers were never able to agree with each other very long. After a gang had been organized and selected its leader, dissensions arose very speedily, particularly as to the division of the spoil. The leader always believed that he ought to have a larger share of the plunder than anybody else, while all the subordinate members believed just as earnestly that their stealings should be divided equally. In this way quarrels took place. The captain would be deposed and another one selected, and he in time would share the fate of his predecessors.
“Some of the bushrangers were quite famous for their bravery and daring, and they used to give the police a great deal of hard fighting. On the other hand, the police acquired a high reputation for their skill in fighting and capturing bushrangers. They were instructed to bring in their captives alive, if possible, but it did not injure their reputations at all if they killed the scoundrels on the spot. The government wanted to be rid of the rascals, and frequently offered rewards for their capture, ‘dead or alive.’
“Whenever the bushrangers made a haul of gold dust it was divided as soon as possible, each man taking his share and doing with it what he pleased. They generally hid their booty in spots known only to themselves, and when any of the bushrangers were captured, the police usually proceeded to draw from them the information as to where their gold was concealed. Naturally, the fellows were unwilling to say, and if they refused to tell, various means were resorted to to make them give up the desired information. Singeing their hair, pinching their fingers and toes, or submitting them to other physical tortures, were among the means commonly used.
“When ordinary methods failed, a favorite device was to tie the bushranger hand and foot, and then place him on an ant hill. The black ant of Australia has a bite that is very painful, and when hundreds of thousands of ants are biting a man all at once, the feeling is something fearful. The ant-hill torture was generally successful. After submitting to it for a time, the bushranger generally gave up the secret of the whereabouts of his gold. I do not mean to say that all the police officials indulged in this harsh treatment, but it is certain that many of them did.