A Lady's Visit to the Gold Diggings of Australia in 1852-53

his post, declaring it his intention to return to Melbourne with the four returning diggers. Poor fellow! their awful account of the Black Forest had been to

h I frequently did to relieve the monotony of being perched on the dray by myself) I saw a fine specimen of the ORELUDIAE at the foot of a tree growing from the wood; it was something like a yellow sweet-pea, but really too beautiful to describe. The barks of the trees, and also the ground, have a black, charred appearance (hence the

commodation for man and beast. We patronized neither, but made the best of our way towards Kyneton. Our road lay through a densely wooded

and; this is the chief station of the Government escort; the barrack ac

resident magistrate and constabulary, with a police-court and gaol in progress of erection. The township is rather straggling, but what houses there are have a very picturesque appearance. The only draw-back to this little town is the badness of the streets. Although it is rather on an elevated sp

iver, and is crossed by a

cessaries were purchased in the town, and after continuing our

nd a half from our camping place. The town consisted of about three tents, and an inn dignified by the appellation of the "Malmsbury Hotel". It is a two-storied, weather-board, and pale house, painted blue, with a lamp before it of many colours, large enough for half-a-dozen people to dine in. It (the inn, not the lamp,) is capable of accommodating two hundred people, independent of which there is a large tent, similar to the booths at a fair, about 100 feet long by 30 wide, for the convenience of those who prefer sleeping under cover when the house is full. Being hungry with their walk, our comrades dined here, for

e for a spree, (which means to fling their gains away as quickly as possible,) and then as soon as the dry season was regularly set in, they meant to return to Bendigo for another spell at work. On representing to them the folly of not making better use of their hard-earned wages, the answer invariably was, "Plenty more to be got where this came from," an apt illustration of the proverb, "light come, light go." Two of these diggers had with them their licences for the current month, which they offered to sell for ten shillings each; two of our company purchased them. This, although a common proceeding, was qu

ature of the licence tax itself. The licence, (for which thirty shilling

ICENCE. No. 171

I hereby Licence him to dig, search for, and remove Gold on and from any such Crown Land within the Upper Lodden District,

manded by me or any other person acting under the Authority of t

BAXTER, Co

e Licence are the

PERSONS DIGGING FOR GOLD, OR OTH

oduced whenever demanded by a Commissioner, or Person acting under his instruc

y Law to be fined, for the first offence, not exceeding 5 pounds; for a second offe

within Ten feet of any Public Road,

rected within Twenty feet of each oth

Gold Fields maintain and assist in maintai

of accompanying a crowd of similar offenders to the Commissioners, sometimes four or five miles from his working-place, pay a fine of about 3 pounds, and take out a licence. After the 20th of the month, the fine inflicted is generally from 5 pounds to 10 pounds and a licence, which is rather a dear price to pay for a few days' permission to dig, as a li

story-suc

to make himself a favourite with both father and daughter. The exception was this. Old Hinton was a strict disciplinarian-one of what is called the "good old school"-he hated radicals, revolutionists, and reformers, or any opposition to Church or State. Mike, on the contrary, loved nothing better than to hold forth against the powers that be; and it was his greatest boast that Government had n

gly. The day of their departure arrived, and with a tearful injunction to bear in mind her father's wishes, Susan bade her lover farewell, and Robert and he proceeded on their journey. Full of his own happiness, Mi

rdour of this exciting work another month commenced, and Mike at first forgot and then neglected to renew his licence. "The inspector rarely came his rounds before the 14th; the neighbourhood was considered deserted-fairly 'worked out;' he'd never come round there." Thus argued Mike, and his f

the place, so great that it was almost excavated; then the rush took a different direction, and few now cared to work on the two or three spots that had been left untouched.

of nuggets discovered, their gains divided, and the gold sent down to the escort-office for

distance. Suddenly Mike felt a heavy hand upon his shoulder: he looked up, and saw before him-the inspector. He had already with him a large body of defaulter

e," muttered Robert, loud eno

elapsed. The inspector waxed impatient. A suspicion of the truth flashed across Robert's mind, and he too descended the hole. THERE was the coat and the licence of the past month in the pocket; but the owner had gone, vanished, and an excavation on one side which led into the next hole and thence into a complete lab

into others, and thus escape. His success was beyond his expectation; and he regained the open air at a sufficient distance from his late quarters to escape observation. Once able to reflect calmly upon the event of the morning, it required little discrimination to fix upon Robert hi

e. No time was lost; and when, three days after Mike's return, Robert (with his head full of plots and machinations) presented himself at old Hinton's door, he found them all at a well-spread wedding brea

with green trees; the bridge is a timber one, out of repair, and dangerous. A township called Malmsbury has been laid out here in small allotments with the expectation of a future city; but as yet not a house has been erected, with the exception of the "hotel" before menti

ood of Saw-pit Gully, so called from the number of saw-pits there, which formerly gave employment to numerous sawyers, whose occupation-it is almost needless to st

became very beautiful, diversified with hill and dale, well wooded, with here and there a small creek, more agreeable to look at than to cross, as there were either no bridges or broken-down ones. The loveliness of the weather seeme

is neighbourhood, out of which five people cleared 13,000 pounds worth of gold each in about a few hours. In lieu of sinking a shaft, they commenced in a gully (colonial for valley), and drove a hole on an inclined plane up the side of the hill or rise. However wet the season, they could never be inconvenienced, as the very inclination would naturally drai

lt inn on an old spot, for I believe there was an inn in existence there before the diggings were ever heard or thought of. The accommodation appears on rathe

id a journey even of sixteen thousand miles. The trees had been all cut down; it looked like a sandy plain, or one vast unbroken succession of countless gravel pits-the earth was everywhere turned up-men's heads in every direction were popping up and down from their holes. Well might an Australian writer, in speaking of Bendigo, term it "The Carthage of the Tyre of Forest Creek." The rattle of t

ent cure for drowsiness. Before proceeding with an account of our doings at the Eagle Hawk, I will give a slight sketch of the character and peculiarities of the diggings themselves, which are of course not confined to one spot, but are the characteristics that usua