Gold was discovered in Australia at a time when the people of every nation in Europe were demanding a greater share in their respective governments. Many who immigrated in search of gold took a leading part in making the Australian Governments democratic.
Melbourne, 1852.—The non-arrival of the Mail-steamer left us now no other care save the all-important one of procuring food and shelter. Scouts were accordingly despatched to the best hotels; they returned with long faces—"full." The second-rate, and in fact every respectable inn and boarding or lodging-house were tried, but with no better success. Here and there, a solitary bed could be obtained, but for our digging-party entire, which consisted of my brother, four shipmates, and myself, no accommodation could be procured, and we wished, if possible, to keep together. "It's a case," ejaculated one. At this moment the two last searchers approached, their countenances not quite so woebegone as before. "Well?" exclaimed we all in chorus, as we surrounded them, too impatient to interrogate at greater length. Thank Heavens! they had been successful! The housekeeper of a surgeon, who with his wife had just gone up to Forest Creek, would receive us to board and lodge for thirty shillings a week each: but as the accommodation was of the indifferent order, it was not yet as une affaire arrangée. On farther inquiry, we found the indifferent accommodation consisted in there being but one small sleeping-room for the gentlemen, and myself to share the bed and apartment of the temporary mistress. This was vastly superior to gipsying in the dirty streets, so we lost no time in securing our new berths; and ere very long, with appetites undiminished by these petty anxieties, we did ample justice to the dinner which our really kindly hostess quickly placed before us.
The first night on shore after so long a voyage could scarcely seem otherwise than strange, one missed the eternal rocking at which so many grumble on board ship. Dogs (Melbourne is full of them) kept up an incessant barking; revolvers were cracking in all directions till daybreak, giving one a pleasant idea of the state of society. The next few days were busy ones for all, though rather dismal to me, as I was confined almost entirely indoors, owing to the awful state of the streets; for in the colonies, at this season of the year, one may go out prepared for fine weather, with blue sky above, and dry underfoot, and in less than an hour, should a colonial shower come on, be unable to cross some of the streets without a plank being placed from the middle of the road to the pathway, or the alternative of walking in water up to the knees.
Our party, on returning to the ship the day after our arrival, witnessed the French-leave-taking of all her crew, who, during the absence of the Captain, jumped overboard, and were quickly picked up and landed by the various boats about. This desertion of the ships by the sailors is an every-day occurrence; the diggings themselves, or the large amount they could obtain for the run home from another master, offer too many temptations. Consequently, our passengers had the amusement of hauling up from the hold their different goods and chattels; and so great was the confusion, that fully a week elapsed before they were all got to shore. Meanwhile, we were getting initiated into colonial prices—money did, indeed, take to itself wings and fly away. Fire-arms were at a premium; one instance will suffice—my brother sold a six-barrelled revolver for which he had given sixty shillings at Baker's, in Fleet Street, for sixteen pounds, and the parting with it at that price was looked upon as a great favour. Imagine boots, and they were very second-rate ones, at four pounds a pair. One of our between-deck passengers who had speculated with a small capital of forty pounds in boots and cutlery, told me afterwards that he had disposed of them the same evening he landed at a net profit of ninety pounds—no trifling addition to a poor man's purse. Labour was at a very high price, carpenters, boot and shoe makers, tailors, wheelwrights, joiners, smiths, glaziers, and, in fact, all useful trades, were earning from twenty to thirty shillings a day—the very men working on the roads could get eleven shillings per diem, and many a gentleman in this disarranged state of affairs, was glad to fling old habits aside and turn his hand to whatever came readiest. I knew one in particular, whose brother is at this moment serving as a Colonel in the army in India, a man more fitted for a gay London life than a residence in the Colonies. The diggings were too dirty and uncivilized for his taste, his capital was quickly dwindling away beneath the expenses of the comfortable life he led at one of the best hotels in town, so he turned to what as a boy he had learnt as an amusement, and obtained an addition to his income, of more than four hundred pounds a year as house carpenter. In the morning you might see him trudging off to his work, and before night might meet him at some ball or soirée among the elite of Melbourne.
I shall not attempt an elaborate description of the town of Melbourne, or its neighbouring villages. The town is very well laid out; the streets (which are all straight, running parallel with and across one another) are very wide, but are incomplete, not lighted, and many are unpaved. Owing to the want of lamps, few, except when full moon, dare stir out after dark. Some of the shops are very fair; but the goods all partake too largely of the flash order, for the purpose of suiting the tastes of successful diggers, their wives, and families; it is ludicrous to see them in the shops—men who before the gold-mines were discovered toiled hard for their daily bread taking off half-a-dozen thick gold rings from their fingers, and trying to pull on to their rough, well-hardened hands the best white kids, to be worn at some wedding party, whilst the wife, proud of the novel ornament, descants on the folly of hiding them beneath such useless articles as gloves.
The walking inhabitants are of themselves a study; glance into the streets—all nations, classes, and costumes are represented there. Chinamen, with pigtails and loose trousers; aborigines, with a solitary blanket flung over them; Vandemonian pick-pockets, with cunning eyes and light fingers—all, in fact, from the successful digger in his blue serge shirt, and with green veil still hanging round his wideawake, to the fashionably attired, newly-arrived "gent" from London, who stares round him in amazement and disgust. You may see, and hear too, some thoroughly colonial scenes in the streets. Once, in the middle of the day, when passing up Elizabeth Street, I heard the unmistakable sound of a mob behind, and as it was gaining upon me, I turned into the enclosed ground in front of the Roman Catholic Cathedral to keep out of the way of the crowd. A man had been taken up for horse-stealing, and a rare ruffianly set of both sexes were following the prisoner and the two policemen who had him in charge. "If but six of ye were of my mind," shouted one, "it's this moment you'd release him." The crowd took the hint, and to it they set with right good will, yelling, swearing, and pushing with awful violence. The owner of the stolen horse got up a counter demonstration, and every few yards the procession was delayed by a trial of strength between the two parties. Ultimately, the police conquered; but this is not always the case, and often lives are lost and limbs broken in the struggle, so weak is the force maintained by the colonial government for the preservation of order.
THE DIGGINGS
Of the history of the discovery of gold in Australia I believe few are ignorant. The first supposed discovery took place some sixty years ago at Port Jackson. A convict made known to Governor Phillip the existence of an auriferous region near Sydney, and on the locality being examined particles of real gold-dust were found. Every one was astonished, and several other spots were tried without success. Suspicion was now excited, and the affair underwent a thorough examination, which elicited the following facts: The convict, in the hope of obtaining his pardon as a reward, had filed a guinea and some brass buttons, which, judicially mixed, made a tolerable pile of gold-dust, and this he carefully distributed over a small tract of sandy land. In lieu of the expected freedom, his ingenuity was rewarded with close confinement and other punishments. Thus ended the first idea of a gold-field in these colonies.
Suddenly, in 1851, at the time that the approaching opening of the Crystal Palace was the principal subject of attention in England, the colonies of Australia were in a state of far greater excitement; as the news spread like wildfire, far and wide, that gold was really there. To Edward Hammon Hargreaves be given the honour of this discovery. This gentleman was an old Australian settler, just returned from a trip to California, where he had been struck by the similarity of the geological formation of the mountain ranges in his adopted country to that of the Sacramento district. On his return he immediately searched for the precious metal; Ophir, the Turon, and Bathurst well repaid his labour. Thus commenced the gold-diggings of New South Wales.
The good people of Victoria were rather jealous of the importance given by these events to the other colony. Committees were formed and rewards were offered for the discovery of a gold-field in Victoria. The announcement of the Clunes diggings in July 1851 was the result; they were situated on a tributary of the Lodden. On 8 September those of Ballarat, and on the 10th those of Mount Alexander completely satisfied the most sceptical as to the vast mineral wealth of the colony. Bendigo soon was heard of, and gully after gully successfully attracted the attention of the public by the display of their golden treasures.