JEMMY LLOYD.

Waikato Times, Volume 2188, Issue XXVII, 17 July 1886, Page 2 (Supplement)

JEMMY LLOYD.

By "The Warrigal." Tue "Vagabond" said lately, in one of his letters to the Australasian that he found on + he walls of Menendi Hospital (a building without either Htaff or patients) some clever charcoal sketches. I saw some of them done, and one in particular, a * ketch of old Jemtny Lloyd, was worthy of praise. Poor old Jemmy joined our party at Chinchica. We were on our way to the Mount Brown diggings, and a queer party we were. Tnere was a tall slim young fellow named Larry, who | talked nud looked like a gentleman, only , the bWayf aud his clothes did nob suit him. There was the " Old Dreamer," a* we called him, a man who talked in his sleep of silver, and whp bragged when awake that he knew where there was tons of it. (Menendi is not far for Silver City.) There was the runaway sailor, and there was your humble servant, and last but ' not least, Jemipy Lloyd. Jemmy was an objec^ worth sketching. He was a little, roundshouldered bandy-lesrgcd man, who had a broad face, a bro.id mouth, and a broad griu. He carried his old swag dangling against hi* legs, and would along tijej-e sandy roads with the glaring sun making- the thermometer register over 120 degrees as happy as a Bonrke-street swell — happier, perhaps, for as he slouched aloujj he sang quaint old balllads that we ali liked to hear. Jemmy carried a .tin candlebox for a billy, aud it was a con.staut source of amusement to see it capsize several times before he made his tea. He used to lay a stick across the billy as soon as he put the tea in to make it *'drar" (so he said.) Whenever he opened his swag he used to gather round it and laugh, for he had the queerest collection of things in it out of a museum. The internal orgaua of concertina, the barrel of a pintol, the heads and stems of a score of pipe*, twenty-two pieces of soap (which he never used), the rim of a cabbage tree hat, old buckles, part of a snaffle bit, and, last of all, a scraggy crumb brush. How he treasured the useless things in that swag, and looked them over aud connted them and rubbed them up every night. I shan't forget the expression of Jemmy's face when suddenly coming on us after an absence of two days. Jemmy was so anxious to reach the diggings that he refused to camp on a Sunday ; so we directed him to keep the river on his left, and as he had no more idea of keeping to a track than a kancraroo, we told him if he was puzzled to always go to the left. Jemmy went on all right for some time, because keeping our directions in mind, he of bourse kept close to the river ; but when the simple old man reached the next station he crossed the river, and still keeping to the left of course landed back opposite us. How we roared with laughter when he told us what he had donp, and we made him promise not to leave us when we got together again. We sat clown by the river and smoked our pipes while Jemmy, hugging his beloved swag at the other side, sung us the old ballad about some poor boy coming into a fortune, to which Jemmy added,141 wish I could find a lump of gold as big as my 'cad." Then we parted, telling him to keep the river on his right this time ; but the first advice we gave him clung to him, and he went away to the left slouching and singing, and dangling the old swag, no doubt until the agony of thirst came on him, and then he would fling away that dear old collection of useless articles in his nud search for water, and wander till heconM wander no more, and then fall down on the dry burning sand to die. His old swag was found miles away from the liver, and his bones no doubt lie uleaehing under the glaring sun on those deadly Australian plains.

Tin vessels rust and are often worth* leap in a few weeks because, after was'iiujr, they are not set on the stove for a mttnenb. or in the sun, to dry thoroughly bU'ow they aie put away.