Every town and village were becoming gradually deserted. “Those who remain behind to mind the flocks demand such wages, that farming will not long pay. Labor is in such demand that any body with a pair of hands can readily command thirty-five shillings per week, with board and lodging.” The Government Commissioners had given in their unanimous report, that the gold fields were already so extensive as to afford remunerative employment for one hundred thousand persons. In conclusion, the last advices describe the excitement as so intense that fears were entertained that sufficient hands would not be left to get in the standing crops.
Every week the number multiplies of gold-seekers’ colonies planted about streams in Australia; at all, the conduct of the diggers is exemplary. Most of them cease from labor on the Sunday, and spend that day as they would spend it if they were in town. The first keg of spirits taken into an Australian gold field had its head punched out by the miners; and Government has since assisted them in the endeavor to repress the use of stronger stimulants than wine or beer. Where every member of the community possesses more or less of the great object of desire; where stolen gold could never be identified; where it would be far from easy to identify a thief who passes to-and-fro among communities composed entirely of chance-comers, having faces strange one to another, a little drunkenness might lead to a great deal of lawlessness and crime. There are men, however, who will drink; and what are called by the miners “sly grog-sellers” exist, and elude discovery in every gold settlement. Yet we read of one man who, being drunk, had dropped the bottle which contained his gold, and are informed that he was afterward sought out, and received due restoration of his treasure from its finder. Some settlements are much more lawless than the rest, and we have read, perhaps, more ill of Ballarat than any other; yet it is of Ballarat that we receive the following sketch from a private correspondent.
The writer, with a party of four young friends, quitted a farm near Geelong, in October last year, to experiment as a digger at Ballarat until the harvest. One man at a gold field can do little for himself; a party of about four is requisite to make a profitable division of the labor. “With this party,” our correspondent says, “I started on Thursday, October the second, for the Gold City of Ballarat. We took with us all requisite tools; a large tarpaulin to make into a tent; provisions to last us for two months. All this was stowed away in our own dray; and our man Tom accompanied it.
“This mode of travelling—the universal mode in Australia—is very pleasant in fine weather. We used to be up at daybreak, and start as soon as we had breakfasted. We would go on leisurely—for bullocks won’t be hurried—and get through a stage of from fifteen to twenty miles, according to the state of the roads, allowing an interval of one hour for dinner. Then we would stop for the night at some convenient camping-ground, where there was a good supply of grass, wood, and water. There, our first proceedings were to make a big fire, and a great kettle of tea—a kettle, mind; then we rigged out a temporary tent, spread our beds on the ground, and went to sleep as comfortably as if we were at a first-rate hotel.
“On Monday night—having left the farm on the previous Thursday—we camped about two miles from the diggings; and making a very early start, we got in sight of them a little after sunrise.
“It certainly was the most extraordinary sight I ever beheld. Imagine a valley, varying in width from one hundred to five hundred yards, inclosed on either side by high ranges of hills, thickly timbered. Through the middle of this valley there winds a rapid little stream, or ‘creek,’ as it is termed here. On the banks of the creek, and among the trees of the surrounding ranges, were clustered tents, bark-huts formed after the native fashion with boughs of trees, and every kind of temporary habitation which could be put up in the course of an hour or two.
“Some idea may be formed of the number of tents and other habitations, when I say that there were then at least five thousand men at work within a space of about half-a-mile up the creek. All these had collected together in a few weeks; for it was only in the latter end of August that gold was first found in this out-of-the-way forest valley—now the site of the ‘City of Ballarat,’ as it was nicknamed by the diggers.
“We chose a place for our tent on a rather retired spot, not far from the creek; in a couple of hours our ‘house’ was put up, the stores stowed away inside it, and Tom and his team were off on the home journey to Geelong. Leaving the others to ‘set our house in order,’ get in a stock of firewood, bake a damper, and perform various other odd jobs attendant upon taking up one’s residence in the Bush—Fred and I set out to reconnoitre the scene of our future operations.
“The place where there was the richest deposit of gold was on the face of a hill, which sloped gradually down from the edges on the right-hand (or east) side of the creek, going towards the source. I mention these particulars, because it is worthy of note that almost all the principal diggings have been discovered in places similarly situated. The whole of the hill was what geologists call an ‘alluvial deposit:’ consisting of various strata of sand, gravel, large quartz boulders, and white clay, in the order I have named them. It is in this white clay, immediately beneath the quartz, that the gold is found. In one part of the hill, where the discovery was first made, this layer of quartz was visible at the surface, or ‘cropped out:’ in other parts it is to be met with at various depths, of from five to thirty feet.
“When first these diggings were discovered, there were, as might be expected, continual disputes as to how much ground each man should have for his operations. One party applied to the Government, which immediately appointed a Commissioner and a whole staff of subordinates, to maintain order and enforce certain regulations, made ostensibly for the benefit of the diggers. Of these regulations the two principal ones were, that each person must pay thirty shillings per month for a license to ‘dig, search for, and remove gold’ (I inclose you my license as a curiosity); and that no person could claim more than eight feet square of ground to work at, at one time. In consequence of this last regulation, the workings were concentrated in a small part of the hill, where the gold was chiefly to be found. This spot was perfectly riddled with holes, of from eight to sixteen feet square, separated by narrow pathways, which formed the means of communication between each hole and the creek. A walk about this honeycomb of holes was most amusing. The whole place swarmed with men; some at work in the pits; others carrying down the auriferous earth to be washed in the creek—in wheel-barrows, hand-barrows, sacks, and tin dishes on their heads. In some of the holes I even saw men digging out bits of gold from between the stones with a table-knife.