"The diggings hoh! the diggings hah!
Shout for the diggings, shout hurrah!"
—Diggers' Chorus.

During the hours of relaxation the proceedings on the diggings contrasted vividly with the day's employment. The end of the day's labours was in the early days announced by the firing of a gun from the tent of the Commissioner. Then followed a general abandonment of the chip, chip of the pick against the rock, the delving in the mud, the barrow-wheeling, the cradle-rocking, and the puddling in clayey water-holes. With mud-bespattered shirt, clay-soiled pants, and heavy yellow-stained boots, each digging-party sought its tent. Then the ringing sound of axes wielded by brawny arms told of preparations for the evening meal. Hundreds of thin lines of blue smoke ascending from as many fires joined to make the large volume that wafted overhead. Soon the singing of the kettles on the blazing logs cheered the weary digger with the prospect of a fragrant pannikin of tea to moisten his damper—a somewhat heavy staff of life, but one admirably adapted to support the toiling gold-seeker.

On the Gold Fields.

Refreshed and stimulated by the evening meal, the diggers would then light their pipes, and soon the curling wreaths of smoke circling round betokened the complacency of the different companies. Then yarns were spun, arguments held, and songs sung, until the loquacious and musical ones became exhausted or the listeners had fallen asleep.

SLY GROG SHANTIES.

But the harmony of such scenes was but too often disturbed by the noise of drunken revelry—

"Sottish sets more opulent than wise,
The sly grog shanties and hotel comprise;
Wasting the profits of their jewell'd claims,
In hurtful stimulants and risky games."

Although selling intoxicating liquors was an illegal offence on the first gold-fields, yet, despite the vigilance of the Commissioners, the votaries of Bacchus were supplied with their spirituous comforts by certain storekeepers, who cunningly contrived to conceal the illicit decoctions and carry on a brisk trade on the sly.

The ingenuity of these sly grog-sellers in baffling the police evoked a corresponding sharpness on the part of the Commissioners in detecting illegal practices. When a plant was discovered its contents were either confiscated or wasted, and its owner, if found, was visited with the full wrath of the authorities, and afterwards punished according to the law.