THE ITINERANT SHOW.

Dunstan Times, Issue 1053, 23 June 1882, Page 4

THE ITINERANT SHOW.

St. Bath a ns, where we stopped to splay two night, is the quaintest pine imaginable. A marrow, irregular, •■steep street, low-roofed wooden and and iron buildings, some stores, and the usual multiplicity of pub ic house-, •composed the township. AM the land about was under toll for gold. It had the same flood-devastated appearance 'that Naseby had. To a fanciful imagi nation it wasfiike gnome-work. One loaold figure to oneself the little earthmen experimenting in surlace architecture during the hi urs between mightfall and cockcrow, St. Bathans proveda Land of Goshen to us. We should have quitted it a wealthyecmpany if Our Agent had not induced us, against our better judgement, to leave the settling-up until the’last (lav. Then we discovered 'that there was nothing to settle. Our Agent having already settled our entire wedlth «t poker with the miners ; •and then we understood why Our Agent-had declined geingon in advance in accordance with his accepted duty. We felt that this last breach of principle was too much for human endurance, and Our Basso undertook to punish Our Agent; hut he had better have let the job out by contract to a company, fir Our A gent played round Turn like a flash of lightning, and with ■almost as fatal results. Our Agent, ■"■ith his temper well up, was a terror, a sirocco, a simoon and a cyclone all ■in one

Wo hachto stay in St. Batliar.s three ■days longer to nurse the damaged man back to comparative wholeness, and then we got up a benefit performance, by local amateurs, in order to 'raise Ihe wherewithal to move on. Again we embarked under our old driver’s protection, with Clyde as our destina f ion this time. One of the box passengers was a friendly Hebrew with a glass eye. No one could have •suspected the artificial optic. There was a squinting a-pect about the ■owner’s visage when you caught him “ full-face,” or “ three quarters,”as the photographers say, but en profile one. eye looked every bit as good as the other. But the weaver was a man who would scorn to impose even upon • uninterested travellers. “You wouldn’t think that I had a glass eye, now, would youl” said he ■ cheerfully to Tempest, who had managed to get a place on the box- ' snac that day “ Why, no,” Tempest replied a litr tie nervously “ No.” saiil he, gleefully chuckling, ' “ nobody would. That eye of mine is ’ the neatest fraud ever invented. You « couldn’t guess which eye it is, could ■ von?"

• “ No,” said Tempest. • “ Then I’ll show you,” and with > 'staiding suddenness he gouged out his left optic and held it forth in the, palm ot liis hand Tempest possessed fair strength of ijierve, as we all knew, but that eye was too much for him. He turned taint and sick. “ Put the nasty thing away, will you 1 ” said the driver sharply. “ I thought you might like to see it as a curiosity,” said the Hebrew sticking it in again coolly. At Cambrians we all “signed a paper” and felt better. Some ten minutes before we reached this go’d--1 field we espied two Chinamen running to meet the conch. They were the ■ most miserable Celestials I ever beheld—lean, hnngry-looking, withered, wrinkled and dirty. “ Didn’t get it, John,” said the driver as they neared the coach and looked eagerly up at him A second before it had seemed im possible for them to look mote wret- ■ ched, but now the expression of utter despair that came oyer them as they collapsed by the roadside was awful to ■ contemplate. “ What is the matter with them ?” we asked. “ Opium,” said the driver “They’ve ’ been out of opium for a week and expecting some up every mail, but it hasn’t corre. Poor beggars! how they do miss it !” We only stopped long enough at Cambrians, or Welshman’s Gully as it is more popularly called, to de'iver the mail and notice how the place ’ has differed in aspect from all the ■other goldfields we had passed, None of us admired Cambrians as we did Naseby and St Bathans. As we left we saw the two Chinamen, or two others exactly like them, mending their house with a bit of string. The house was built of old kerosene tins broken apatt and tied together, and woubl have h' en considers I by an Fnglishraan rather limited quarters tor his dog A s for “ swinging a eat!” Rut then the C hiuameu didn’t swihg •cats, they ate them. Our next stopping place was at the White Hors’ Hotel, at a place called ‘Reek’s. There was no township, oidy The hotel where we changed horses ■-and paid half a crown for a dinner of ’’boiled mut'on. Between Reek’s and Ophir we passed at a distance “ Drybread” and '“Tinkers,” two goldfieldsou the Dun:stan Ranges. Ophir itself is a very wetty little place, but existence there <ean scarcely be considered lively. , After Ophir we approached the moun- ; vbains—rugged. quaint-shaped mnnusments of a remote volcanic age. The ■western sky, in a glory of light from *he setting sun, formed a magnificent background of rose and purple, opal i»nd gold, for lie great Remarka’’ les,”

whose peaks Bond like glitterin.tr white pillars against the brilliance be yond them. On the top of a/neai er ridge of mountains croucheil th" colossal figure iif a tiger, curved by Nature in the solid rock At a little distance from this rested a handsome lion—achieved by the same hand—the ma~sive and flowing mane vividly distinct against the sky. Fuither again was the 'figure of a sheep, rand further gdn the buff of a mai. All massive, huge, still and solemn, gazing out in grand loneliness over 'he mountains. as they had probably gazed since ages before man had carved the Sphinx in another land.

We approached O ydeas we had ap proached Nasety, in the daik, with twinkling lights of the township glimmering in the distance through the soft fug that spread before and around in a pale illusive sea. The Itinerant Show fell in love with Clyde. Our Tenor said he would like to be brought there to die and be buried and he tried to inveigle Our Basso into a promise of bringing him there when his time came. But Our Basso said it would take him all his time to look after his own funeral, an l he could not promise to attend to other people’s. J lid Our Teuortake him for an undertaker, he would like to know?

Clyde may not be the prettiest ot the Dnnstan townships, but it will dwell in the memoir of the Itin rant Show as quite the pleasantest. Whether this is owing chiefly to its delici ous climate, or to the friendliness of its inhabitants, or to the genial influence of the kindly, comfortable and sparkling hostess of the Dnnstan Hotel, it would be hard to say. I think that hostess had most to do with the perfect pleasure of our stay at Clyde. There are some people one can never think of without a smile and benediction; she is one of those people Bless her! Bless her Chinese cook, too! for he was a jewel worthy of a middle place in a celestial diadem. Such a man as he to look after one's daily well-being would almost resign one to existance. His omelettes—his, but why dwell upon what is a happv experience, divided from us by cruel years and miles that can never be bridged by mere unsatisfying memory? Six miles or so distant from Clyde on oneside is Alexandra; at a distance of seven or eight miles (perhaps a little more) on the other side is Cromwell. You reach Alexandra by crossing a flat skirted by that most dangerous of rivers the Molyneux ; a river that respects not man nor the works of man, but works itself up to flood-pitch at all sorts of unreasonable hours, and with appalling suddenness sweeps down bridges and houses, and carries off tremendous slices of its own banks, and is altogether as wicked and'uncertain a« old Mississippi. It is deep and wide and muddy, and in its peaceable intervals flows along in a soapy lazv.fashion, very unlikejitshigh action in flood-time.

The road to Cromwell is most picturesque. We followed the river through Dunstan Gorge, on bo:h sides of which are caves in the rocks, wherein people do sometimes dwell. A while ago, when the Dunstan rush was at fever heat, these cave dwellings were well patronised by men who were in too great a hurry to build for themselves.

Cromwell is a more populous township than Clyde, and has a lofty opinion of itself as ha ;e all these settlements. Nothing can so offend the settlers in one as praise betowed on another. We offended the Alexandrians and Cromwellians mortally bv our hearty preference for Clyde. Our Basso, discovering the weakness, never wounded people in that way again Ever afterwards each township we came to was the “ finest lie had even' seen.” just as every woman he could get five minutes’ private conversation with was an “ oasis in the desert of his existence.” In reference to this amiable terdency, Our Tenor said confidentially to me one day that one of these times Our Basso would he “ scooped in ” before he knew where he was. I said—- ‘ How d V mean, Harry 1” “Why, some woman will marry him.”

“ Perhaps be won’t mind," said I. “Yes he will.” said Onr Tenor. “ Tom loves his liberty. He’d as soon break stones on the roads is tie himself up to one woman fir life. I’ve heard him say so.” “ Then,” said I. “ I hope that cook at St. Path an s will lie the happy scoop r.” For my heart was aore with the recollection f how Onr Pa-so had got round that cook—a bearded woman, too—for sweetbreads and kidneys and all kinds of delicacies, while we had to take ordinary rough fare and be thankful.

The first objects of interest outside Cromwell a s you travel towards the Lake country are Mount Fisa on the north-east, and the Garrick Range opposite. After those comos Kawarau Gorge, a ravine through rugged mountains, from which huge masses of rock fall from time to time into the river. The coach Las at times to climb along sidings scarped -out of the overhanging mountain sides. Any sinners that happen to be in that locality on the day when sinners will want rocks and mountains to fall o" them will not have, long to wait. Those huge overhanging masses seem scarce to need an invitation to topple over and bury everything below. Thorpe Talbot in the Melbourne iLcader.