IN FOUR CHAPTERS.

Tuapeka Times, Volume II, Issue 104, 5 February 1870, Page 7

IN FOUR CHAPTERS.

Chattee I. It is now nearly fifteen years ago since which prevailed extensively at that time among the young men of the i United Kingdom. It was commonly styled the gold-fever, and the fit seized me very suddenly. I called one evening in Caniden Town to see two bachelor friends of mine who shared lodgings together. I found the floor of their sitting-room lumbered with boxes. " What are you doing ?" I asked in astonishment. " We're off to the gold-diggings." " By what ship ?" , " The John Taylor ; next Wednesday week." I recklessly flung my hat to the other end of the room, gave such a leap that my head nearly bumped against the ceiling, and eried — " I will go with you." "That's right, old boy," they responded. "Go and secure your passage the first thing in the morning. She's filling up quick." The London atmosphere was at that time surcharged with an auriferous insanity. The grey, sober light of morning did not induce me to swerve from my resolution of the previous night ; on the contrary, as soon as the governor appeared, at the countinghouse I boldly walked into his private room, and discharged myself. The governor was, and, I am thankful to say, is still — for I am once more back in the old shop — a very jolly fellow. " You going too, Parker ? Well, well, I'm s6rry for it ; but if you young men will insist on seeing the diggings, I suppose you must. Make out a cheque for your salary, and I'll sign it." I next rushed off to the firm who were agents for the John Taylor. Dismal s news : every birth on board of her was. engaged. I had to take my passaged by another vessel, and this accident \probfobly led to the adventure which I undertaken to relate. I shall not describe the voyage on board the Coldstream, but shall merely say that we reached Hobson's Bay safely in the month of September, Melbourne was a queer place at that time. Emigrants were pouring in at the rate of three thousand a week ; there were eighty thousand people in a town built to hold only twenty-five thousand ; provisions were at famine prices, and all social distinctions were turned topsy-turvy. The John Taylor had arrived some time before the Coldstream, and her passengers had been scattered over the length and breadth of the colony. After waiting three days at the miserable little post-office window in Elizabeth-street — now supplanted by a palatial edifice — in the midst of an eager struggling crowd of letter-seekers, I got a communication from my London friends, saying that they were gone to Bendigo, and would let me know where they were as soon as they were settled. I scarcely knew what to do. I had come to Australia solely and entirely for the purpose of going to the diggings, and to the diggings I was determined to go ; but I did not care to go up the road all by myself. The hundred miles of bush which lay between Melbourne and Bendigo was swarming at that time with escaped convicts from Tasmania, who were making up for a lengthened period of enforced honesty by plundering and maltreating Her Majesty's lieges right and left. Terrific rumours of their outrages were circulated. It was of no . protection to be poor. The man '. whose pockets were well lined was robbed and released ; but the wretch who had nothing wherewith to satisfy the cupidity of his savage assailants, was beaten to a jelly ; or, being tied naked to a tree in the lonely forest, was exposed to all the horrors of slow starvation. Moreover, the weather was extremely unfavourable for travelling: rain fell in torrents, and the roads were such hopeless quagmires that one huudred and twenty pounds sterling was gladly paid for the conveyance of a single ton of goods to the Bendigo Creek. I decided, therefore, to wait awhile, and took up my abode at an hotel called the Duke of York, which stood in those days at the corner of Stephen and Collins-streets. The Duke of York had no doubt be,en a comfortable hostelry in the primative days of the colony, but at the time of my sojourn there it was crowded to excess. Extra beds had been crammed into all the bed-chambers, and were instantly secured at prices whjch would be thought exorbitant in an' aristocratic West End hotel. Mattresses were laid atnight on all the sitting-room tables, and a large shed in \h.e yard, with rough stone walls and an earthen floor, was filled with iron bedsteads ; but even this apartment — which we nicknamed the cholera hospiM — was fully occupied, and I was fain't^o pay half-a-crown a night for the privilege of laying my own blankets o^l the dirty ground in the confined spice between two of the aforesaid beds., .There were some drawbacks to this m\ide o£ passing the night. • A£ most at my '(roommates indulged in the objectionable practice of smoking in bed,' and* as I lay on a lower level than they did, I was apt to become the unintentional target for some of the results of their tobacco vapour. Again, it was not unusual for senip J6vial gentleman to

enter the cholera hospital at two o'clock in the morning, with a bottle of champagne in his hand and a couple more under his arm ; he would wake up everybody in turn, and insist that each of the sleepers so awakened should either drink his health or fight him on the spot. I have several times been aroused by the unwelcome apparition of this veritable " Champagne Charlie."

On the whole, however, we had very good fun at the Duke of York. As the weather was cold and wet,' and as the streets after dark were full of footpads, we mostly stayed at home in the evening, and amused ourselves by assembling in the parlour under the guidance of an experienced chairman, and singing songs in the most approved Sons of Harmony fashion. Mr. "Mills took the chair, a man whom we greenhorns looked upon with no small awe, for although only a twelvemonth in the colony, he was reported to have amassed a fortune at the diggings, and was now on the point of returning to England. Moreover, as Mr. Mills was thirty years of age, and had prematurely a bald forehead, he assumed quite a fatherly air towards a youngster like me, for I was not yet out of my teens, and my beard was still all " underground." "Why don't you go up, young man?" says M. Mills one morning, as we stood cleaning our boots in the yard. (The landlord kindly provided brushes and blacking.) " Because I am waiting to hear where my friends are." *' Pooh, sir ; never wait for friends in this country. Every day in town is a day lost. Every day there is so much gold substracted from the soil, and every day, consequently, there is so much the less left for new comers. Why not go up next Thursday in company with Baldwin and Ery ? They are going up to Bendigo, where your friends are."

I ventured to point out to Mr. Mills that I knew scarcely anything of Messrs. Baldwin and Ery. "No more do I," he retorted. " Nobody knows anybody in this delightful country. Baldwin doesn't know Ery, Ery doesn't know Baldwin. I know neither of 'em, except as members of the Duke of York Harmonic Society. I have heard Baldwin say that he was first counterman to a grocer in the Kingsland-road — on that topic I have no certain information ; but Ido know that he sings a good song. He throws a pathos into the popular ditty — " ' I had a dream, a happy dream, I dreamt that I was free,' which is worthy of a more refined atmosphere than that which usually exists in the parlour of the Duke of York. As for Ery, he is a Dickey Sam, as his tongue will inform you — father reported to be one of the first horsedealers in Liverpool. Though reserved, and almost sullen in private life, Ery comes out loud ' in a chorus. I allude especially to ' Landlord, fill a flowing bowl,' and ' A hunting we will go.' Mr. Parker," said this antipodean patriarch of thirty, as he laid a friendly blacking-brush on my shoulder, " 1 recommend you to* go up with Baldwin and Ery."

I think Mr. Mills was a good fellow, but too apt to judge human nature from the harmonic point of view. I shall not detail the history of that journey to Bendigo, which occupied nearly a week, and which was full of adventures much pleasanter to talk about afterwards than to endure at the time. It is enough for me to state that Messrs. Baldwin and Ery soon began to quarrel with each other, and before the end of the joueney was reached displayed towards each other sentiments of the most deadly hostility. Upon the whole, I liked Baldwin better than Ery. To me he was exceedingly civil, whereas Ery was morose to both of us.

As soon as we arrived at the outskirts of the famous Bendigo goldfield, Mr. Baldwin announced his intention of parting from us, as he had friends in a gully hard by ; he accordingly departed. After Baldwin left us, Ery and I traversed numerous gullies and ranges in search of a man whom Ery knew. I may here observe that the aspect of the diggings was very different to what I expected. Except in the neighbourhood of the Government Camp, where the storekeepers' tents, with their gay flags, presented the aspect of a country fair, there was none of the crowd and bustle which I had anticipated. The whole area of the goldfield was as large, perhaps, as the area of London, and the auriferous valleys or hollows, which lay parallel like streets, were separated by wide undulating tracts of forest country.

At length, just as it grew dark, we reached Iran Bark Gully, wearied and hungry. It was here that Ery's friend lived, and after numerous inquiries at all the diggers we passed, we learnt that Brocklebank kept the Royal Liver Store, • near the head of the gully.

It was almost dark, and I had tumbled down several times among the tree-stumps from sheer fatigue and weariness, when we reached Brocklebank's establishment. It consisted of a large tent with boarded sides, and was quite a mammoth + edifice compared with the tiny residential dwellings which lay scattered around it.