THE SKETCHER.

Globe, Volume VI, Issue 606, 29 May 1876, Page 3

THE SKETCHER.

OLD BALLARAT.

[By Charles Bright.]

There was a coach running between Melbourne and Ballarat in 1853, —one of those American hickory contrivances, which may break down but can’t break up ; everlasting almost, like the English ships of a century ago. The road was there—or rather the track where the road would one day be, —the people were there, and the money was there, and so, of course, the universal “ Cobb” was there also. Those who could afford it might therefore enjoy the pleasure of being jolted over the deep ruts, through the clouds of dust, along the corduroy crossings, and over the fords in the day’s drive from the metropolis of Victoria to the premier goldfield. Those who could not afford it, or who preferred to spend their cash in other ways, took passage by the steamer “ Citizen ” to Geelong and then “ shook a fooht,” as Fritz Morley says in the “ Grand Duchess,” for the rest of the way, a distance of 60 miles. The captain of the little “ Citizen ” was a firstclass man for a new settlement, full of vitality and pluck, and did not allow his boat to go to sleep on her passages. He thus acquired ast ong sobriquet, let us say, “ Hades-Confiagration-John.” He has stuck to the colonies ever since, and is well known in New Zealand as commander of one of the crack intercolonial steamers. In those days almost every Melbourne, Geelong, and Ballarat man called him friend.

The walk from Geelong to Ballarat was not much of a tramp. Holiday tourists in Europe do more for pleasure often. Still, in the heat of an Australian summer, to men with swags on their backs and limbs grown lazy on board ship, it was enough. Our party consisted of five, whose united ages would not have reached a hundred. Four, including myself, had nothing remarkable about them —youth, good spirits, good appetites, and empty pockets being quite common at that epoch. The fifth was only noticeable for having more money, and, perhaps, less brains than the rest. He had taken the precaution to purchase a pair of large indiarubber thigh boots to perform the journey in, as he had read a good deal about the activity and deadliuess of the Australian snake before leaving his Birmingham home. We left Geelong at five in the morning, and until the sun became oppressive he floundered along in the dust manfully, looking like a distressed Munchausen, whose boots were by no means seven leaguers. After we bad accomplished about a dozen miles he came to the conclusion that of the two evils he should prefer snakes, and our knives were biought into requisition to turn bis tall watertights into goloshes. Even then the hot glazed indiarubber was too much for his “ poor feet,” and we had to hand him over to the friendly succour of a bullock-dray. He arrived at Ballarat four days after we did, with his feet tied round with bits of cloth. He did not know where the india-rubber was, and didn't seem to care much,

The Ballarat of those days ! What did it resemble? —with its SO,OOO inhabitants all under canvass—only one wooden building— Bath’s hotel—in the place. An army encamped 1 Not a bit. The tents were too irregular—most of them too palatial, the flags flying in the breeze too numerous and various, the bustle too prodigious, incessant, and undisciplined for that, A great old country fair! Somewhat more nearly similar. But then the costumes were less diversified and the feminine element was conspicuous by its absence. No, I know of nothing with which to compare the Ballarat of ’s3—the greatest city of canvass the world has probably ever seen ; a city where all languages were spoken; a city where every nationality, almostevery province, had its representatives; a city with no civic government, no church organisation, no newspaper, and scarcely any public opinion. A strange omnium gatherum of humanity where culture and clownishness, gentleness and savagery jostled each other at every step where scarcely anything was regarded as estimable save pluck and generosity, and nothing despicable save cowardice and meanness. A bad place for a confirmed loafer, but a perfect paradise for a hardworking man who was unfortunate. There was hardly a in Ballarat which would not trust him without keeping count of his purchases, not a tent where he might not obtain a “shakedown” for nights together. Instances of strangers turning up, with gold, after weeks of indebtedness to a friendly storekeeper were of daily occurrence, and the squabble that generally ensued was most grotesque, entirely reversing the ideas conveyed in the maxim caveat emptor . In these cases the bujer would insist that the storekeeper had trusted him with goods of a greater value than he claimed for, until the difference would at last be settled over the

inevitable champagne. Champagne and champagne cider, from teu shillings to twenty shillings a bottle, flowed in Old Ballarat like water, the diggers often squirting it at each other for fun when they were tired of drinking it. Every store tent (hat was erected had its baptism of champagne, every rich bucketfull of washdirt that came to the surface was drenched with it. Tno place was one vast carnival of freedom, extravagance, and dissipation, but with no deception, at all events, and less sordid vice, perhaps, than might be found by a poweifui. Asmodeus in more decently clad and outwardly respectable communities. The main road of Ballarat extended for three or four miles through New Chum Gully, Canadian Gully, and Sailors’ Gully, by the foot of Bed Hill, across the Gravel Pits, between Golden Point and the Black Hill, to the foot of the hill, on the crest of which stood Bath’s Hotel and the Camp. It was uot a straight road, but meandered about as the situation of the thousand shafts which had been sunk on the leads on each side of it necessitated. Along the whole of the distance on both sides of it were erected stores of more cr less magnitude—generally more—all constructed of white canvass, most of them with “ flies” over to mitigate the heat, many lined inside with baize or coloured calico, and decorated with considerable taste. In these booths anything and everything might be purchased, from oranges to musical boxes. There was hardly one of them which could not boast of a flagstaff of its own in front, like a maypole, 70 or 80 feet in height, and with a distinguishing banner cf gigantic s'ze. These flags bore the name of the store —“ The All Nations,” “ The Little Wonder,” “The Great Wonder,” “ The Cosmopolitan,” “Yankee Charley’s,” "The Exhibition Mart,” “The Californian.” and the like. At dusk, the occupants of these emporiums, and of the diggers’ tents scattered about among the holes, would sally forth to discharge their revolvers, prior to reloading for the night, and a deafening fusillade was kept up for some half hour, after which curfew peiformance Ballarat would betake itself to cards, American bowls —there were two or three capital alleys laid down—or the canvass theatre, where au excellent little company played Vaudeville pieces. D'ggers would reach this place of amusement from a distance, bearing lanterns made out of brandy bottles, the bottom knockel off, the bottles inverted, and candl s stuck in the necks, —lanterns which were chucked down old shafts after one evening's use.

The digging parties of th it day were a little ‘‘mixed,” comprising possibly, as mates, a Californian or Cornwall miner of experience, a University man fresh from Alma Mater, a sailor who had left his ship in Port Phillip without waiting for a certificate of discharge, and an “ old hand ” from the " other side,” who had been transported for poaching (?), and had "served bis time like a man.” Even in their working garments it was generally not difficult to tell which , was which, but on Sundays, unless the exigencies of a wet claim precluded the possibility of a holiday, there was a marked distinction. The costume, which was en regie for that day in the summer time among the better class of diggers and storekeepers, consisted of spotless white trousers, white buckskin boots, a broad brimmed straw or felt hat, as fine a linen shirt as money could procure, and a red silk Californian sash. To this might be added a revolver or bowie knife, at the option of the wearer. The shirt was the piece de resistance of the costume, and I have known as much as 30s paid for one of extra decorativeness. Sunday was an important day in one respect. On it all disputes relating to "jumped” claims were ordinarily settled. The jumping party picked their best man, the aggrieved party did the same, and the champions fought the matter out, the usual rules of the P.ii. being strictly observed on the occasion It was cheaper than the ligitigation of later day 3, and possibly quite as likely to secure the triumph of justice. Thera was one licensed house for the sale of liquors for the thirty thousand iuhabitaats of Ballarat, namely, Bath’s Hotel. All the stores were therefore “ sly grog shops,” so " sly” that it was a common thing for the commissioners or troopers to ride up to the entrances, and call for their liquid refreshment there without alighting. Whem S r Charles Hotham’a Government attempted to enforce the absurd legislation aiopted for the goldfields, all this was altered for the worse, but I speak of a time of neutrality preceding the evntful epoch of stockades and riots.

The coup d'ceil presented from the verandah of Bath’s Hotel, situated on the hill where now stretch the magnificent streets of Ballarat West, was a s viking one. For miles and miles extended the white tops of the canvass tents, the flags fluttering at the top of their tall poles, the hundreds of windsails conveying the air down to the claims, flapping about, and the windlasses at the mouths of theshafts busily working,hauling up theprecious dirt from therecessesof the earth. Far off, on either hand, Mount Warrenheip and Mount Euningyong crowned the view. It was a rare spectacle, not likely easily to fade from the memory. A Vanity Fair undoubtedly, but one which at least possessed the merit of displ tying its worst faults on the surface. For beneath those tents and burrowing down in the earth, beat thousands of hearts as full of the milk of human kindness as any in the world. One of our party, who was seized with Colonial fever, was quite affectionately nursed by the man and woman who kept the eating-house, or eating-tent, where we took our meals. They had not seen him until the previous week, but had he been their only sou—heir to all their edible estate, they could not have treated him with greater consideration. The bast bunk in the sleeping division of the tent was allotted to him, and countless packets of gelatine and pounds of arrowroot consumed on his account. “ Ain’t they good ?” he said to me one evening when I came in and found him seated with a tablecloth around him—it was too warm for a blanket —his feet and legs in a tall pan of hot water, and a saucer of arrowroot by his side. I replied that they were very “ good” to him, and thought to myself that if they had not given him the same pan for his feet that they used for our coffee in the morning, they would have been good to us too. There was great excitement at Ballarat one day, a year or more before the famous political and police difficulty. The diggers from below were hauled up by their mates in hot haste, and commenced “ joe-ing ” at the top of their shafts and voices ; thc^ storekeepers ran to their doors and joined in the familiar chorus ; down the hill-rides men came scampering like lunatics. The cause of the ferment, to those unacquainted with the wild school-boy character of the majority of the diggers of those early times, will seem

inadequate to account for the result. It was simply that a man had just arrived from Melbourne with a tall black hat on—a bell topper—the first which had been seen on the diggings, and was then leisurely walking along the main road. At first he was not recognised, and was merely greeted with shouts of “ joe,” amidst laughter, which spread through the whole goldfield. But when it was discovered that it was a Canadian—one of the most popular men on the Gravel Pits—who had returned from a visit to Melbourne, and had brought the “hat of respectability” for a “iark,” the chase began in earnest, Haro and hounds among a lot of mad school-boys out for a holiday was nothing to it. At last he was caught, while making an abortive effort to swarm up a flag staff, and the hat was turned into a football. until the original beaver himself would not have recognised his own skin. “ What imbecility !” the staid city man may say, especially the young city man, who is generally disposed to excel in priggishness. Ihe older man of business-propriety and banking bienseance will feel, if I mistake not, in his heart of hearts, a lurking desire that devotion to worldly cares and puppetshow pomp had left him the opportunity and capacity to enjoy even such imbecility as this.

In that population of 30,000 I do not sup pose there were more than 100 females at the time of which I write; and, strange to say. among that hundred probably more than one half wore ladies, very superiorladiosaome of them—would be admitted as such in any •society in the world. A few of the s orekeepc's bad ventured to bring up their wives, aval even daughters, and i never heard of an instance in which they had cause to regret it. Ihe really chivalric devotion of most of the miners of those days to any Isdy with whom they had tho opportunity of conversing, was something to note and remember. It fared ill with any fellow who, inflamed with drink, ventured on foul language in that presence. Even the old —old drama of youthful love and courtship was enacted in the midst of that strange assemblage with -;he old—old feelings and incidents. The Claude was a fine young digger, who had been the first mate of a merchantman, and was now among the lucky ones at Golden Point making his “ pile” rapidly. The Pauline was the daughter of a store keeper who had practised as a medical man in the old country, but had forsaken physic in England for fancy goods and drapery in the midst of the gold revel. She wap sixteen years of age, and as pretty and innocentio .-king as Hebe. Half the young follows on Canadian Gully were in love with her, but Claude had been “ first mate,” and remained so. Their billing and cooing was accomplished on the warm moonlight evenings sitting under an unused windsail at the rear of her father’s tent. The grassy slopes of Como the vine-clad banks of the Rhine might have furnished more appropriate scenery than the wild uncanny canvass city, with its ocsasionalpistol shot?', its wandering brandy-bottle lanterns, and frequent hilarious outcries ; but I doubt if any scenery would have made them a whit happier. The drama of love needs few “ properties.” “ Lips, and lips to kiss them, Byes, and eyes to behold, Hands, and hands to press them, Arms, and arms to enfold.”

It ended in, I believe, the first marriage performed onißallarat. Heigho! That is twentythree years ago. I wonder if Claude and Pauline dwell still onearth, andif so, whether they recall with pleasure or disgust those moonlit moments on “ Old Ballarat.”