OTHER PIONEERS.

The rich discoveries at Clunes excited the cupidity, or perhaps we should say the spirit of adventure, of many of the colonists, and tempted them to leave their ordinary occupations to join in the search for gold. A resident of Buninyong, named Thomas Hiscock, was induced to examine the surrounding hills. A brief search was rewarded by the discovery, in one of the many gullies that wind among the hills, of some bright yellow grains, which, from their weight and lustre, he thought must be the precious metal he was in quest of. These specimens he took to Geelong for the purpose of having them tested by a competent assayer. He arrived at Geelong on the 10th of August, and had some difficulty in finding a reliable gold expert; but a gentleman who had seen Esmond's specimens a few weeks before pronounced Hiscock's "find" to be true gold, and much finer and more glistening than that found at Clunes. When Hiscock's discovery was made public a number of workmen and idlers left Geelong and set out for the gully. But the weather was cold, and the continual pouring of rain damped the ardour of most of the adventurers ere they began to seek for the precious metal. Many remained in the township of Buninyong, not venturing to camp on the hills, because the ground there was so muddy and the gully so slushy as to render living under canvas extremely miserable, and fossicking for gold almost impossible. Despite these drawbacks there were within a fortnight of the arrival of its discoverer in Geelong over forty diggers at work in Hiscock's gully. But ill-luck attended the efforts of most of these pioneers, and continual disappointments forced many of them to try the diggings at Clunes.

With this object in view, a digger named Dunlop packed up his tent and baggage, and would have taken himself to Clunes; but when he learned that four pounds was the price of carriage in the waggon about to start for that place, he resolved to give Buninyong another trial. Early next morning he disappeared from the township. In the evening he returned to his wondering mate and showed him a match-box containing half an ounce of gold, which he said was the result of that day's seeking amongst the hills five or six miles away. His mate would not believe his tale, but at break of day Dunlop again disappeared—this time in company with a friend named Regan. A few days elapsed, and the two men being still away, his mate went out in search of them. Then the absence of the three men was remarked at the hotel where they had been lodging. Four other men, suspecting the cause of the sudden disappearance, and hoping to share in any fresh discoveries, went stealthily out of the township and endeavoured to track the supposed lucky prospectors. But the latter did not wish to be discovered, and attempted to elude their pursuers. However, all their efforts to escape observation were in vain, for in a very short time the place that Dunlop had discovered attracted almost all the diggers from Buninyong, who soon displaced the few miserable native wanderers who had roamed over Poverty Flat—as it was gruesomely named—"monarchs of all they surveyed, and lords of the fowl and the brute."

Shortly afterwards the treasures of Golden Point were revealed. A family named Cavanagh had secured a half-worked claim, and having carried it below a layer of pipe-clay into the midst of some decayed slate, they struck the first of those rich pockets which were afterwards found in such abundance throughout the Golden Point Field.

Before the end of August the mineral richness of the neighbouring creeks became evident, and numbers of nimble fossickers gathered the first crops of the Ballarat gold-fields. In September rich diggings were opened at Mount Alexander, and two or three weeks later the yield of those at Bendigo eclipsed for a time the glories of all other fields.

CHAPTER III.

Effect Of Discoveries.

"Like stragglers from an army, orderless,
The adventurers toward their haven press;
Their ardent minds, ignoring present care,
Imagine future "lobs" of which they share.
Through their hot brains what splendid visions speed
Of golden claims directly on the lead,
Enabling them thro' hoary Age to sail
With hawsers moored to Competence's tail!
*   *   *   *   *
How chang'd the landscape since the paleface came,
How hard to recognise it as the same!
The earth no longer wears her garb of green,
But grave-like holes may everywhere be seen;
The forest fell'd to cook the miners' food,
The sadden'd Natives scatter'd and subdu'd."
The New Rush.—J. Rodgers.

The wonderful effect of the valuable discoveries made during the first few months of gold-seeking soon became apparent in Melbourne and Geelong, owing to the rapid departure for the diggings of great numbers of the townsfolks, who abandoned their ordinary vocations in order to get a share of the profuse rewards there meted out by Mother Earth to the industrious or the lucky.