VICTORIA. [From the Maitland Mercury's Correspondent.] Bendigo, Oct. 10, 1852.

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume VIII, Issue 762, 20 November 1852, Page 3

VICTORIA. [From the Maitland Mercury's Correspondent.] Bendigo, Oct. 10, 1852.

Sir, — In my last I promised you a description of Bendigo,- but the difficulty of giving you a clear idea of it in the space to which I must necessarily confine myself makes tne despair of tloing so to my own satisfaction or .that of any one else. To describe its variety, and yet, paradoxical as it may seem, its monotony, would be a task demanding the graphic pen o c Dickens. If a*thousand race-courses, -with all their tents and flags flying, were collected together, you might thensee some resemblance to Bendigo, as far as the mere habitations of the diggers •were concerned ; but there would be a great dissimilarity as far as the people were concerned, those on the race- course being clean shaven, and nearly uniform in their dress, while those at Bendit;o sport every variety o c costume and every form of beard — whiskers, znustachios, and imperials. Then again Ben•digo at night is inimitable with its thousands of fires, like those of some mighty army, blajcing everywhere on hill and gully — dogs barking — men shouting — innumerable guns going off — altogether forming a perfectly novel, and to one unaccustomed to it, a somewhat bewildering, scene. No matter where you go, evevy gully in the least promising, to possess the golden ore is completely rooted up, the mounds of yellow clay having somewhat the appearance of an interminable mass of ant beds, the miners themselves /esembling ants in their industry and their habits of working underground. But 1 am afraid that my description is becoming too particular, so I shall stand upon another tack, and telT you something about the gold itself. . The fortune-making days of Bendigo have indubitably passed away, and the yield is not estimated as formerly by pounds but by ounces. This was only what might be expected from the, immense number of people who have been flocking hither for the last six months from almost all parts of the world. The richest gold field must be limited in its extent, and as Bendigo is not an exception to the rule, when the principal gullies were worked, there must of necessity be a falling off in "the average yield of gold per man. If it be true, as I heard, that 7 1,000 licenses were taken in the month of August, there could not be much less than 100,000 diggers on the ground. Now with this number the yield as per escort was not extraordinary, as at first sight it might seem to be. In its palmiest days, as now, the majority of the people at Bendigo were doing very little, and in fact there is a greater disproportion between the successful and the unsuccessful here than at any of the Australian diggings. At present there are hundreds, nay thousands, absolutely not earning their rations. Many men have informed me that they have been here five or six months and have not yet cleared their expenses. The majority of those who came from New South Wales will not do so, unless new diggings are shortly found out, which does not seem likely to be the case, as the ground has been prospected everywhere around for forty or fifty miles. Hundreds are leaving Bendigo daily, and notwithstanding the numbers arriving, there are not half so many people on the diggings as when I first arrived. New comers find it impossible to get a place that has not been worked or prospected before. Some of the ground has been turned over three or four times. In short, unless something new turns up Bendigo will become as deserted as the Turon before three months more. The Hunter River people are only-waiting authentic information from the Bingera diggings to " slope " their way back again. If the reports we have lately heard concerning Bingera be truer you will shortly have a stream of return diggers that ; will astonish you. Those who were here before and did well are, to use a common phrase, completely non plussed this time, and more down on their luck than the new chums. Bendigo now and Bendigo last summer are two very different places. Water is -not over plentiful at present, and- when once itrbecomes scarce the diggings here are sure to be almost deserted, as. the *fw^" will natv pay^ for. carting like last summer. • The week before last almost the whole of the digging population of Bendigo- left for new diggings at the Porcupine, Moonlight Flat, and Beelzebub Flat. The roads daily were lined with drays and people like the Market-place in Sydney -on- Saturday evenings. You might hate seen some men wheeling barrows with four or five cwt. on them, others drawing heavily-laden carts, and the majority with swags on their backs heavy enough for donkeys, all wending their way for the new diggings, which were reported; to he immensely rich. Several fcpn^ around Jis went to see it, promising to retqrn, and report thereon.. When they arrived there it turned opt to be a complete hoax ; nc* one could sink in the majority of the gullies'iri cpnsepuerice of the abundance of water, arid "of those who did get to the washing sluff not one* in twepfy got .as much <as would pay. for their ratiops. They are now returning as fast as they went^pjfovteions; being enormously high and scarcely to-be obtained at all. .Weary and; disgusted, manr % of them hare. lefj> for their homes, vuMminy more ate onijf waiting to get enough money to dcr-ieT The Porcupipe, in fine, iWjß* too;: aharp^ jlbr ; thjSra- ; Moonlight plat ttjrje^,p|fj; K taL- I j[e mQQmhine^ip p»riaest ; aqd at for Beelzebub, mhy that completely played" t§*, <fet»7 with-theroV "■' ••"> ' l >?~"'-" >" - :r With regard to my o?nj tncce«f»Xhaye,not much reason to complain at yet/ Although no*

exactly " making the pile," i.e., a fortune (piles enough of clay we are making,) nevertheless we are doing very well, averaging the • last week about 6 ozs. per diem. "We sunk however several holes without getting a Spec. Yesterday one of our mates filled a match-box full of earth, which I washed out, and in which there were two ounces. A tubful out of the same place produced about 4 ozs. the same day. We are sinking through the pipeclay at present, and have come to a vein of gravel } a panful which we tried turned out very well,. so that at present our prospects are golden ones. We are the only party in the gully that are doing so well. The gold is nuggetty. and we scarcely pass a day without obtaining one or more specimens of gold in quartz, some of them very handsome. Murders, robberies, &c, are so dommon here that scarcely any notice is taken of them. Whilst stopping on the" Back Creek a dray was robbed one night close to our tent, and one man severely wounded ; £1 20 reward has been offered, by Government for the apprehension of the robbers. Notwithstanding the numerous seizures made by the police, sly-grog-selling is carried on to an unparalleled extent. The parties vending it walk up and down the gullies with a bottle fo'led up in their coats, asking each digger as they pass him if he's for a nip. It is a nipping one and no mistake, when he pays Is. 6d. a glass for what is more than half water. . ... ■ t , . . • • The police are very strict in collecting licenses. After the 7th of the month, any one found working is fined £5, in addition to the license fee, for the first offence ; and at each succeeding offence the fine is increased. Num* bers are fined monthly ; nevertheless many escape without paying anything.