[Old Times on the Gold-Fields.]

"Gold, Gold, Gold, Gold—
Bright and yellow, hard and cold."
—Tom Hood.

CHAPTER I.

THE CONVICT'S STRATAGEM.

The earliest discoverer of gold in Australia is unknown to fame. Probably he was one of that class of colonists whom Barrington, the pickpocket, poet, and historian, describes in the oft-quoted couplet:—

"True patriots we, for be it understood,
We left our Country for our Country's good;"

and who were employed on the roads of the colony and on the selections of its settlers in doing the rough work incidental to the opening of a new country. For the first report of the existence of the precious metal we are indebted to the cunning of a convict, who attempted to regain his liberty by the following stratagem. It is related by Governor Hunter in his journal of Transactions in the Colonies. In August 1788, a report was current in the settlement which for some time appeared credible. It ran thus:—A convict named Dailey had discovered a piece of ground on which was a considerable quantity of yellow ore. Specimens of the stuff were examined by the Lieutenant-governor (in the temporary absence of the Governor), and found to contain several particles of gold. The convict was interrogated, and so plausible was his tale that the officials fully believed it, and doubted not that the man had discovered a valuable field. He was disinclined to make known its whereabouts until the Governor's return, when he promised to give full particulars of the discovery, provided he and a certain female prisoner should be liberated and given berths in one of the ships then on the point of sailing for England. But the Lieutenant-governor, impatient at the reservation of the convict, told him that unless the alleged discovery was substantiated the reward should be of rather a disappointing and irritating nature. Fearing punishment, the convict relaxed a little, and said that the mine was on the lower part of the harbour near the seashore, and offered to lead the officer to the place. Accordingly an officer and three or four soldiers embarked with the discoverer. He took them down the harbour and landed them near a wood which he said was only a short distance from the mine. He led the party into some dense scrub, and when in the thick of it, managed to give them the slip. The cheat then made for the camp as quickly as his legs would take him round the bay, and got back early in the afternoon. He at once informed the camp officials that the officer was now in possession of the gold-mine. Shortly afterwards he sneaked away from the camp to a place of concealment. Meanwhile the party in the scrub waited some time for their guide, and then spent hours in holloing and in beating the bush for him. At length the officer decided to return, and as the wily convict had persuaded him to send back the boat, the party were obliged to march on foot round to the camp, where they arrived at dusk, and learned with chagrin of the trick played upon them. In a few days starvation brought the convict from his lair. He was promptly punished for his deceit, although he still asserted the truth of his story. An officer was again sent with him to find the mine, and this time the convict was so frightened at the officer's threat to shoot him if he attempted to practice another dodge, that he acknowledged he knew of no mine at all. On being questioned about the ore produced, the convict confessed he had filed down part of a yellow metal buckle, mixed with it some gold filed off a guinea, blended both with some earth, and made the conglomeration hard as rock.

Colonel Munday relates that in 1823 a convict (one of an ironed gang working on the roads near Bathurst) was flogged for having in his possession a lump of rough gold, which the officer in charge imagined must have been the product of watches or trinkets stolen and melted down. Indeed, the toiling prisoners of the early days often picked up bits of gold, but as they could never find any other than the first small specimens, their claims for reward were disregarded and their alleged discoveries disbelieved. Long before the actual working of the gold-fields scientific adventurers had predicted the existence of gold formations in the mountain ranges explored by them, and geologists who had never visited Australia had expressed their conviction that the Australian Cordillera must be auriferous because of the remarkable similarity of their characteristics and those of other well-known gold-bearing regions.

EARLY DISCOVERIES IN NEW SOUTH WALES.

The honour of making the first report that was published lies with Count Strzelecki, for in 1839 he mentioned in the report of his exploration of New South Wales, under the heading "Gold," of "an auriferous sulphuret of iron, partly decomposed, yielding a very small quantity or proportion of gold, sufficient to attest its presence, insufficient to repay its extraction." At the request of the Governor, who was afraid of the consequences of awakening the attention of the colonists and the thousands of convicts to the presence of the alluring metal, the Count did not at the time make public his discovery and belief.