Elf, g5"L JS95. LAND, LABOR AND GOLD; OR, TWO TEAES IN YICTOEIA, VOL. I. LAND, LABOR AND GOLD; OR, TWO YEARS IN VICTORIA VISITS TO SYDNEY AND VAN DIEMEN'S LAND. WILLIAM IIOWITT. IN TWO VOLUMES. VOL. I. BOSTON: TICK NOR AND FIELDS. MDCCCLV. Eif. *S2- OAlIBRIDGSi THURSTON AKD TORRY, PRINTERS. GODFREY HOWITT, m.d., OF MELBOURNE, THESE VOLUMES, DESCRIPTIVE OF A COLONY, OF WHICH HE HAS WITNESSED THE EARLY INFANCY, AND THE MARVELLOUS GROWTH, ARE INSCRIBED BY HIS AFFECTIONATE BROTHER, THE AUTHOR. PREFACE. My object in the following work has been to place the reader, as much as possible, in my own position whilst collecting the material for it. To let him see, feel, and draw his conclusions, as far as I could enable him, as fully and fairly as I did myself. I found my self in one of the most noble dependencies of England, — in a country which one day must become a great and populous one, and that at a crisis unexampled in history, — new, strange and without an exact precedent. I saw that the position into which I had thus stepped created a great national duty ; and I determined to discharge it faithfully. As I had no interest in the questions involved, — except such as are the interests of every British subject, — and no purpose to serve but a patriotic one, I resolved to state simply, fully, and without fear or favor, what fell under my notice. If, therefore, my plain speaking shall, as it probably may, VIII PREFACE. give pain occasionally to individuals, I can only plead a most sincere desire to avoid such annoyance ; but that, without an honest and candid exposition of prom inent parts, I could not give to the whole portraiture that truth which the most vital interests, both of the colony and the mother-country, demand at this mo ment. The condition of our Australian colonies is singular and anomalous beyond conception ; and what is not the less extraordinary is, that it is almost totally unknown at home. Nothing has so much surprised me as to find how little aware was the majority of people, well informed on subjects in general, of the actual state of things in Australia ; nothing has surprised them so much as my statement of the administrative system in Victoria especially. As new constitutions for that colony and for New South Wales are at this moment under the consideration of the Imperial Legislature, it is of the utmost importance that accurate information regarding the singular condition and position of these colonies should be as widely and as rapidly diffused as pos sible. On the adjustment of these constitutions to the real wants of the Australian colonies, and to the well defined wishes and opinions of the colonial public, depends whether we shall long regard our Australian settlements as dependencies, or independencies. Strong as beats the British heart in those distant lands, warmly as the PREFACE. IX thousand ties of birth, kindred and national pride, in cline the Australians to their alliance with us, yet the questions, whether these new and immense countries shall be cramped and crushed in their growth by the most absurd restrictions, — whether old and ruinous routine shall defeat all the elastic buoyancy of a young national spirit, — are questions of such moment as admit of no alternative but freedom at any cost. Whilst writing this, I see that Lord John Russell has called upon Parliament to sanction constitutions for New South Wales and Victoria, more or less in accordance with those framed by the colonial legislatures them selves, and has obtained leave to bring in a bill re garding the waste lands of these colonies. If, as I presume, these waste lands are to be consigned to the Australian colonies, to be dealt with by their legis latures under these new constitutions, the battle betwixt the colonial public and the squatters and landowners will be at once transferred from the mother-country to those colonies ; and that battle will be fought out with much pugnacity and heat. Owing to the very partial population of Victoria and New South Wales, and con sequently the imperfect state of their representation, the squatters and landowners will be able to make a bold and vigorous stand against the people. We shall not be long before we hear the first rolling thunders of this gathering campaign ; and I trust that these pages will enable my countrymen to comprehend fully X PREFACE. the features and bearings of the contest as it proceeds. That the people will eventually triumph is certain ; and as certain that, from that triumph of the enfranchised land, will originate an emigration from this country, which will only broaden and deepen with years, and a prosperity which will be equally felt in those colonies and the mother-country. London, May 20th, 1855. CONTENTS OF THE FIRST VOLUME LETTER L Signs of Approach to Land — Arrival — Excitement on Pilot com ing on Board — News of the Diggings — Monstrous Charges for everything — Specimen of Mode of doing Business on the Wharf — State of Things in Melbourne — Canvas Town - Page 1 LETTER II. First Sample of Scenery — Appearance of Melbourne — Pleasant Environs — Extraordinary wooden Suburbs of Collingwood and Richmond — Price of Land and Rents — Artificial Obstructions to Colonization — A new Colony only a Government Pinfold — Glut of Merchants' Clerks — Wages of Servants — Want of Labor — Weedy Gardens — Great Nugget — Appearance of Emigrants coming from Sydney and Van Diemen's Land - - 12 LETTER in. SCENES IN MELBOURNE. Rage for gain in Tradesmen — Sending a Parcel — Price of Provis ions — News from the Diggings — Prices there — Land Mania — Mad Prices and Amazing Rents — Flower Show at Botanic Gar dens — A Walk into the Woodlands — A new Abbotsford — Gentleman's House and Grounds at Brighton — Melbourne Scenes .11 CONTENTS. and Characters — Luggage Thieves — Destroying a fine Site for a Town — River-side Slaughter-houses — Earth sown with Bottles — Caution to Women emigrating — Street Scenes — Successful Diggers breaking a horse — Independence of Servants — ,A Gentle man as Groom — Spring — Appearance of Gardens - -24 LETTER IV. STILL MELBOURNE, AND GLIMPSES OF ITS NEIGHBORHOOD. Projecting our Journey — People a Month in getting their Effects from the Ship — Bank of England Notes at Twenty per Cent. Dis count — Expert Thieves — A Tailor's Stock stolen from the Lighter — Clerks and Delicate Men at Discount — Governor won ders what People are coming for — Visit to a Farm — New Settle ments — Rude Fencing — Primitive Forest — Fruits fine, but little cultivated — An English Character on everything — New Birds — Triantelopes — New Plants — Our London Harness ridiculed — First Taste of a Dust- wind — A Wheelwright's Bill — The new Aristocracy or Hairystocracy — Cabmen refuse to drive Gentlemen ; only take Diggers — Bushranging Feat in the Suburbs — Alarm in the Night — The drunken Tanner - - - - - 51 LETTER V. ON THE WAY. On the Way — Many Counsellors about the Roads — Riley's Swamp — First Encampment — Spectral Aspect of the Forest from the great Bush-fire on Black Thursday — Paddy Burke's Bog — A grand Take-in by an Irishman — Watch and Ward — Terrible Journey — Heads of the Plenty — Burning Heat — Lose our Horses in the Woods — Grand Pursuit — The Doctor lost all Night — News from a Bullock-driver — A Chaise into the Hills — Will's Wild Mob — The Horses recovered — Part Company with our Fellow-travellers — Opossum and Wild-cat Hunting — A Sam ple of the Pleasures of Bullock-driving - - - - .70 CONTENTS. LETTER VI. Break down — Encamp in the Woods — A Sailor turned Shepherd — Rainy Weather and leaky Tent — In quest of a Wheelwright — Humorous Reception by a Squatter — Kilmore and its Mud — Squatter Life — Chase after a lost Writing-case — Whitehead's Station — How we spent the Fifth of November — Enter on Sterile Country — Vernal Flowers — Leatherheads — Laughing Jackass — Thrushes — Warbling Crows — Wattle-birds — Not true that Australian Birds have no Song — Black Trout and Blue Craw fish 96 LETTER VII. Scene on passing Sandy Creek — Wonderful Scene at the Goulburn Ferry — Gross Neglect of Government — Township of Seymour — Burnt Ground and Barren Woods — Iguanas — Snakes — Pest of Flies — Overtaken by a Party of Friends — Huge Trains of Bullock-drays and Diggers' Carts — Aspect of the Diggings — Women — Strange Costumes — Free and easy Address — Van Diemonians — Thorough Break-down again — Scenes around us — Morepork — Razor-grinder's Nest — Mode of Life on Travel — A View of Interior of our Tent — Scotch Publicans and Greedy Highlanders — Passing the Time till Wheels are Repaired — Sketching and Exploring — Fresh Birds and Flowers — A Friend returning from the Diggings dilapidated - 114 LETTER VHI. Author attacked by Dysentery — Intolerable Heat — Melancholy Situation — Visit from Mounted Bushrangers — Their Cowardice and Cruelty — Discover Mr. Forlonge's Station — Remove to his Sheep Station — Extreme Kindness — Life at the Station — Intel ligent Overseers — Sheep-Washing and Shearing — Doings of Shearers — Wonderful Wages — Cavalier Conduct of Workmen — Shepherds insane from Solitude — Miserable Public-houses — Bush Life a9 regards Shepherds, Overseers and Squatters — Adven tures of Cattle Drivers — Squatting System the great Obstacle to Colonization — About Six Hundred and Fifty Individuals hold all XIV CONTENTS. Victoria — Instances of Colonial Mismanagement — The Gold Dis covery the making of the Squatters — Visits of Shepherds to the Author — Daily Scenes at the Crossing of the Creek — The Gov ernment and the Bridge — Set forward on our Journey - - 134 LETTER IX. Rise of Charges as we proceed — Petty Thefts — Strange Scene at the Broken River — A party of Shipmates returning from the Diggings, in Disgust — Fine View of the Australian Alps — The Pest of Flies increases — Dampier's Account of them — Grass- Seed Nuisance — Prevalence of Cramp — Mischief of one-sided Accounts of Australia — Monopoly of Ferry at Ovens River — Dialogue between Ferryman and Author — Meet another Disap pointed Party — Cattle-branding — Reid's Station — Odd Recep tion at Mackay's Station — Ovens Ranges — New Class of Shrubs and Flowers — Groups on the Road ----- 155 LETTER X. Ovens Diggings — Extraordinary Scene — Increasing Gold Fever in England — -Reality here — Sickness, Death, Disappointment — Dangerous Experiment of Women coming out — A great Rush, which proves a Hoax — Murders — Christmas Day - -178 LETTER XI. Diggers' Propensities ; Firing Guns and Felling Trees — Spring Creek and Reid's Creek — Wet Diggings — Ants, Centipedes, Scorpions and Flies — Reid's Creek, its Repulsive Aspect — Attempt to assas sinate Mr. Reid — Sells his Station — An Official Snob — Civility of Spring Creek Diggers — Death of Dr. Godwin, a Shipmate, from Disappointment — His Grave — Fresh Rushes — Perpetual Empty Rumors — The Mysterious Germans — Heat 139° — Our Digging Experience — Intense Competition — Determine to go ahead — Explorers dogging in the Bush — Mutch the Miller — Re sult of the Dogging Manoeuvres — We discover a Gold-field 188 CONTENTS. LETTER XII. Stealing away — The Miller's Camp — Miller's Boy lost in- the Woods — Steer our Way through the Forest — Arduous Journey — Profound Solitudes — Obstructions from Jungle and Dead Timber — Dragging on through the Rains — The Yackandanda — Two Diggers there — Our Encampment — Opossums and Flying Squirrels — Dog bitten by a Snake — Extraordinary Hawk Fam- • ily — Black Cockatoos — Hot Wind — Colony destitute of wild Fruits 205 LETTER XIII. Digging up the Creek — Plenty of Gold — Prospectors find us out — A Veteran ofthe Class — A great Rumor of our Discovery, and a Rush — Crowds arriving, Tree felling, Bullock-drivers swearing — Tents and Stores pitching — Nature returned to Chaos — Pros pecting ahead again — Scenes among the Hills — Routine of our Daily Life — The Miller and his Men excited by our Success — Our Claim robbed — Frantic Conduct of the Men — Menace Assassination — The men punished — Mutch and an Old Man — Predominance of Scotch in the Colony — A Scotch Spend thrift * - - 219 LETTER XTV. Fresh Throngs on the Diggings — Estimate of Climate — Fresh Accounts — Statements of various Authors — All understate the Heat — Heat shown by our Thermometer — Changes of Tem perature — Causes of Hlness — Effectual Precautions — Evils in evitable in a new Colony — Exposures of Digger Life — Fly- blight — Diggers' Real Grievances — Nothing done for them — Rigorous Exaction of License Money — Russian Treatment — Why no Roads ? ^ What the Mormons did — Dr. Lang on the Land System — Au American's View of our Policy — Colony opened to Plunderers, but not to Settlers - - - 242 VOL. i. h XVI CONTENTS. LETTER XV. Leave the Yankandanda — Vast Changes — An unlucky Digger — Crowds coming up — More wonderful Rumors — Richard the Groom turns up — His Wine-cellar — Rides a Steeple-chase over the Holes — Features of a Digging as it is — Ride to the Murray — Granite Desert — Pleasant Locality of Reid's Mill — Sleep in the Open Air — Bewildered Old Man — Camp of Natives — A Walk through Albury — The Evils of the Squatting System stamped ou the whole Colony — Why England produces more Wool — A Gang of Horse-stealers — Second Night in the Open Air — Visits at Reid's, Turnbull's, and Forlonge's Stations — A Specimen of an Australian Gardener — A Squatter's Progress — The Forkrage Family — Mrs. Forlonge's Wanderings in Saxony — Introduce Saxony Merinos -------- 263 LETTER XVI. Immense Growth of Melbourne — Government still busy with Town Allotments, but without small Farms — Consequences of this Policy — A Specimen of Rents and Bargains — A Drunken Man's Luck — Rage of Speculation — A Supposed Error in a Title Deed — Population of Melbourne — Fortunes not made at the Gold Fields — Erroneous Views of this at Home — Gold-buying become Profitless — The Land-shark, a Government Creation — Specu lators — Birds of Passage — Trade Immense, but Unsound — Vic toria the Paradise of Labor — Influx of Chinese — Wooden and Iron Houses — Price of Building Materials — Melbourne a Digger Babel — Assumption of Servants — Distress of Immigrants on Landing — Houses for the Destitute — Canvas Town — - Working on the Roads a genteel Profession — Sketch of the Life of a Stone- breaker ---------- 291 LETTER XVH. On the Road again — Crowds still flocking to the Diggings Vol canic Plains — Stuck in the Mud all Night — Curious Incident at a Store — A Lady Storekeeper — Horrible Roads — Dragged through by Macdonald and Macleod of the Isles — Capsize of their CONTENTS. XVU Dray — Break down again and left behind — The Forge in the Woods — Diggers on Small Farms — Why not more of them — Crab-holes and Dead-men's Graves — Desperate Struggle through the Mud — Ancient and extinct Volcanoes — A solitary New Chum — The Big Hill — Wonderful Escape of a Wool-dray — Heavy Snow-storm, and Crashing Trees — Man with a Break-down reading the Jest-book — Our Second Break-down — A Colonial Smith and his Profits — Frightful Road through Kilmore — How to get at the Post Office — Highlander in pursuit of a Thief — A Famous Idea of the Victorians — Roadside Lodgers — Return to Melbourne for more Stores — Scenes on approaching it — Heavily laden New Chum — Cockatoo Settlers and Campers-out — Hosts of Drunkards — Strange Public-house Sign - - 313 LETTER XVIH. Struggling up the Road again — Mischievous Cockatoo Settler — Third Break-down in the Bush — Drunken Smiths — The Big Hill and the Brandy Bottle — Fourth Break-down on the Sydney Road — Boys sleep there — Author, like an old Gibeonite, reaches our Camp — Start Afresh — Roads full of broken Carriages and Dead Cattle — No Slavery like getting up to the Diggings — The Squatter and his Troubles — Man digging his Boot out of the Road — Fortunes made by Small Farmers — Severe Nights and thick Ice, but Warm Days — Amusing Scenes on the Road — In quiry after the Man in Slippers — A Cockney Shepherd, inquiring after himself — Wonderful Rumors and Rushes — Arrive at M'lvor — Pleasant Country . — Stripping Bark in the Woods for a Winter Hut — Rumors of a Copper Mine - - - 339 LETTER XIX. Aspect of Diggings and Diggers — Conspicuous Characters — Mrs. Bunting — American Auctioneer — Scene between him and a Digger — American Baker — Grog-selling — Ruins — Savage Dogs — Noise of Fire-arms — Familiar rudeness of Diggers — A Spec imen — Corruptions of Language — What the Boy3 are growing into — Account of one by Himself — How they cheated the Com missioner — Another Specimen and History — Lesser Fry — A Bush Comfort of Bullock-bells - - 357 CONTENTS. LETTER XX. On the Way to "Bendigo — Cross the Campaspe — Visit from a crazed Shepherd — His strange Fancies and Conversation — Mid night Visit from Bushrangers — The Result — Another Visit from one as Scout — Rob two Ladies there next Morning — Murderous Attack on the Gold Escort by same Party — Jenny, Kitty, and Lizzy Ennis, a, merry Group of Bush Children — A Gentleman Shepherd — The Story of the Frenchman and his Badger - 377 LETTER XXI. Bendigo Diggings — Their Appearance — Vast Extent — Beauty of Golden- wattle in Flower — Bendigo's Seven Hills, like Rome — White Hills — Gold Company a Failure — Diggers jealous of Capital and Machinery — Strange Architecture of Diggers' Huts — Winter Weather ; Wet, Cold and Heat — Women and their Costume at Bendigo — Descend a Digger's Hole in the White Hills — Wild Rushes and Picturesque Groups — Drunken Riot and Robberies — Duty on Spirits in Victoria more than Half a Million per Annum — Suppression of Grog-shops a Sham — Inefficient Commissioners — Intelligent Friends — Scene at a Dinner Party — Cry of ' A Boy in a Hole ! ' — The Coroner's Ape-^- Our large Dog Stolen 397 LETTER XXn. Digger Insurrection — Digger Grievances — Official Treatment — A Model Police Magistrate — Deafness of Government — Hermsprong, Inspector of Police, and his Doings — Burns down Grog-shops and gets Rich — His Brass-knobbed Whip 'Green Apples' Burns the Widow's Tent — Character of Mr. Commissioner Gil bert — His Mode of Action — Obviates Riot — Digger Testimonial — Present Agitation — Processions and National Banners — Digger Monster Meeting — A Republican Speech — Disgusting Conduct of Foreign Red Republicans — Spring Glory of the Woods — Boy Shoots a Horsestealer — Another Stabs a Bushranger — Post script : News of Riot at Ballarat - - 418 TWO YEARS IN VICTORIA. LETTER I. Signs of Approach to Land — Arrival — Excitement on Pilot com ing on Board — News of the Diggings — Monstrous Charges for everything — Specimen of Mode of doing Business on the Wharf — State of Things in Melbourne — Canvas Town. Melbourne, September 23, 1852. At sea, on the 9th of this month, I wrote, ' To-morrow, if the wind is favorable, I trust we shall cast anchor off Melbourne, after a voyage of one hundred and two days ! ' This morning, at ninety miles from land, on opening the scuttle in my cabin, I perceived an aromatic odor, as of spicy flowers, blown from the land ; and going out to an nounce the fact, I met a gentleman coming into the cuddy, who said, ' Come on deck, and smell the land ! ' People could not at first believe it ; but there it was, strong and delicious, as Milton describes it from the coasts of Mozam bique and of Arahy the Blest. The wind is blowing strong off the shore ; and the fragrance continues, something like the scent of a hay-field, but more spicy. I expect it is VOL. i. 1 Z TWO YEARS IN VICTORIA. the yellow mimosa, which my brother Richard said we should now find in flower all over the valleys. A very amusing fellow-passenger, who was always am bitious to be the first to suggest anything, said, eagerly, ' It is the scent of cowslips ; mind ! I say it is cowslips ; and we shall see when we get there. Remember that ! ' On my observing that I did not believe that there was either cowslip or primrose in the country, except they were in a garden, our amusing friend exclaimed, ' Oh ! I say it is cowslips, or something like them. It is mimosa, or something with a honied smell. It is something of that kind. I say it is that.' On which there was a gen eral laugh, our sagacious comrade widening his assertion so as to include everything. This evening another sign of our approach to land — a hawk, for all the world like an English hawk. It is won derful what excitement so small a circumstance occasion ed after a three months' absence from land. Warned by what Miss Bremer had said of the cruelty with which a wearied bird was knocked down, that settled on the rigging on her way to America, I determined, if possible, to pre vent the like here. A sailor was instantly running up the shrouds, to knock it down as it sat on the cross-trees of the mainmast ; but I called to him to let it alone. The captain shouted to him, ' Let it alone till it is dark ; ' but I said, ' Why till dark ? why molest it at all ? Let it alone.' The man came down ; and after awhile the little Australian herald sailed away again. In the evening another bird, a species of fly-catcher, came on board, and made itself quite at home in the rigging, pursuing a small species of Harry-long-legs, which came also on the breeze. But a still more exciting indication of the approach to land was the light on Cape Otway, the cape before we ARRIVAL. 3 turn up towards Port Phillip Bay. The captain after tea took a stellar observation, — the elevation of one of the fixed stars, called in the Nautical Almanac ' lunar stars.' After this he said the light must be thirty miles ahead of us, on the lee bow, and placed himself to watch for it. The chief mate, and a sailor called Big Sam, went aloft ; and they immediately cried, ' Light ahead ! ' There was a stunning shout. The captain said, ' Thank God ! we have made no mistake then.' The great deep was passed, we were within sight of land if it were daylight, and were getting into still water. The next morning we found ourselves skirting the lofty coast of Cape Otway forest. We could see the hills cleft with ravines and hollows, the whole covered with wood, and the thickly-ranged stems of the tall white-gums lit up with the sun. By ten o'clock we were within sight of the Heads of Port Phillip Bay, a bark coming coastward be hind us, as if from Adelaide, and three more ahead of us were going off in the direction of Sydney, In the evening we arrived in port, and cast anchor. Our voyage was accomplished. We found, by the daily account kept on board, that including the circuitous route which all ships are obliged to make to avail themselves of the proper winds, our course had been only thirteen thou sand, and not sixteen thousand miles, as commonly reck oned. The fine stretch of woody hills on our left hand had gradually sunk down as we advanced, into flat land ; and when we reached the Pleads, as they are called, of the bay, — that is, the opening into the bay, — about two o'clock, we were amidst perfectly flat scenery. The opening into the bay is, I suppose, about a mile wide ; but there is a reef on each side which contracts it still more. At this place the pilot comes on board ; and it is very 4 TWO YEARS IN VICTORIA. necessary, for no less than four wrecks lying outside the reefs show that it is a very dangerous spot. There is a light-house on the left-hand hill, on a piece of somewhat elevated land, containing the enclosure of one or two fields, which looked very neat and homelike after our long voy age at sea. On the opposite side were wild sand-banks covered with tea-scrub, showing to our eyes vastly like gorse-bushes. But what a moment of excitement is that in which the pilot steps on board ! Every soul is brimful of anxiety to learn what is the news about the Gold Fields. The pilot, a tall, grave-looking personage, steps on board, and is in stantly surrounded by the eager passengers as by a swarm of bees. A hundred questions are put to him at once. ' What of the diggings ? Do they keep up ? Is there plenty of gold ? Are they likely to last ? Do people really make fortunes in a few weeks ? How deep are the holes ? Can we get easily up the country ? ' &c. &c. The grave, leisurely-looking man, no doubt internally enjoying their impatience, says : ' Put no questions to me ; I must attend to the ship.' That is a damper, and the taci turn Palinurus proceeds to lay down on the deck a basket of flowers that he has brought with him to take to the town. In those flowers there is an answer to one question ; they were magnificent stocks and geraniums, at once beautiful and fragrant as if they had grown in Paradise. There was an end to the assertion that flowers in Australia have no scent. But the gold ! the gold ! Burning with impatience, the passengers still pressed round the pilot with devouring looks : the imperturbable man only looks aloft, and cries, ' Lower your topgallants ! ' and to the man at the helm, ' Keep her full ! ' The passengers on the poop stood si lent ; the intermediates, in a dense crowd, stared up in NEWS OF THE DIGGINGS. 5 blank disappointment. But at this trying moment a small green vessel, ' The Wild Irish Girl,' comes gaily brushing by, and the master shouts, ' Come along ! we'll show you the way to the diggings ! ' ' Hurrah ! ' burst forth the delighted crowd of emigrants. ' There are diggings then ! It is no hoax ! ' And all brightened up, and all began to talk and laugh together. For how natural is the feeling ! Wordsworth only has not thought that ' Lucy might be dead ! ' Thousands on thou sands, when they have neared the Land of Promise after months of voyaging and much endurance, have felt their hearts sink at the sight of the strange shores, and fears have strangely stolen across their bosoms. ' What, and if the whole story should prove untrue ! What, and if they meet us here with jest and laughter ! ' But the old pilot, now seeing that the secret was taken out of his hands, began with a knowing smile to lug a huge roll of newspapers from his pocket ; and crowds rushed round him, seized upon them, and you saw half-a- dozen hands holding one paper, and a dozen heads peer ing over the others, devouring the all-important columns. The news oozed out rapidly. There was a moment's deep silence ; then a brilliant paragraph was read aloud ; then another, and another. — Abundance of gold ; — New dig gings discovered ; — High market price of gold ; — Won derful instances of good luck ! Hurrah followed upon hurrah. Then came inquiries about the price of provisions ; of freight ; of carriage ; of horses and bullocks ; and all looked blank with consternation. Horses which had been declared in English newspapers, quoting former prices, worth from 10Z. to 15/., selling at 101. and 100Z. ; pairs of bullocks, said to be worth 51., selling at 401. ; and so on ! Freight to Melbourne from the bay 31. per ton. How in O TWO YEARS IN VICTORIA. the world were many people to get out of the ship even ! Now was felt, in all its horrible force, the mischief of making floating grogshops of passenger ships, in defiance of a dozen stringent Acts of Parliament. Where was the money of scores and hundreds of intermediate passengers, which would have carried them with ease through this costly Melbourne, and up to the diggings ? All vanished in rum, beer, and tobacco-smoke ! Where were those valuable orders on Melbourne banks which careful parents had entrusted to uncareful sons, so that they might not be able to spend their all on board ? Cashed by the captain, and all evaporated in smoke and alcohol too ! Anon there shall be seen troops of those jolly young fel lows who have been on the voyage so jocund and so jovial ; who have sung, and danced, and gambled on the sunny deck, and drunk in the lamp-light below ; who, in the merry blood of youth, elated with the merry fire of rum, have put the pigs down between decks night after night, and tied tin-kettles to the tails of unoffending dogs, and chased them amongst the berths of the sober and the sleep ing, — of those who had more years, more cares, and more little children, and far less riotous spirits of all kinds than themselves, and who have dashed pails of sea-water into the beds of others. Anon shall these prodigal sons be seen opening their boxes and exposing to sale on the knee-deep mud-banks of Melbourne their shirts and their best clothing, for cash to carry them on their needful jour ney. Careful parents of uncareful sons, go yet a step farther in carefulness, and send your order on the Australian banks to meet them by post, not even telling your hopeful scions what is the amount of your ' small order,' but merely giving them an authority to receive your remittance of a MONSTROUS CHARGES FOR EVERYTHING. 7 certain date. Better trust to the honor of colonial bankers than to the seductions of floating grogshops. Melbourne, Sept. 23d. — Here we are, and have been these ten days. We find all our friends well, and heartily glad to see us. On our return to the ship to see about getting off our effects, we found that all the sailors had de camped, and started for the diggings, — a rather unfortu nate event for our early starting. But all the sailors do the same ; and nine of the soldiers sent out here to keep guard on the ships and prevent this, have deserted, and gone off in the same direction. The charge for everything here is monstrous, and the good people of Melbourne seem to understand perfectly the art of playing into one another's hands. The town, by the river, is eight miles off; by land, nearly three. There is not the slightest shadow of a shade of any quay, wharf, or warehouse at the harbor, — no work of man, in fact, to facilitate the landing and secure stowage of goods, any more than if the bay and the country were still in possession of the savages, and not of a civilized and mer cantile people, with streams of gold flowing down the country, and streams of people and of valuable merchandise flowing into it, — except a single jetty, leading to a single public-house on the naked beach, three miles, as I have said, from the town. Thither you are obliged to take a boat, the charges for which are frightful. The boat to take you to the beach, called Liardet's Beach from the public-house there, charges 3s. each, whence you must get to town by omnibus, 2s. 6d. If you are alone, they will ask you 10s. or a pound ; and if you are obliged to go out to a ship, and they know it, or if the water be somewhat rough, they will charge you what they please. A gentleman tells me that, one evening, being obliged to go on board of a ship about to sail, the boatmen 8 TWO YEARS IN VICTORIA. only charged him 12Z. ! If you go over to William's Town, at the mouth of the river, in order to get the steamer which runs thither from Melbourne, you pay 2s. 6d. if there are several of you, 7s. or 10s. if only one, the dis tance in either case perhaps half a mile. You then pay 5s. each for the steamer up the river. As there are only two of these steamers, they are very independent, and play into the hands of the boatmen, and vice versa. They could, with very little trouble, put you down at the vessel on returning, but they will rarely do it. I have already seen them refuse to go alongside a vessel lying in their very way, though a dozen people wanted to go on board of it. No ; they will carry you to the pier at William's Town, and hand you over to the boatmen. There is a regular system of fleecing the arriver. The freight from London hither is 31. per ton ; from the ship to the wharf, eight miles, it is just half that sum, 30s., and thus, with the system prevailing at the wharves, and the enormous charge for cartage thence into the town, the whole cost of transferring your effects from the vessel to your lodgings is actually more than of bringing them the previous thirteen thousand miles, including the cost of con veying them from your house to the London docks. What I witnessed at the wharves may give a pretty lively idea of the way of doing things here. I landed my effects at a wharf, the owner of which is reckoned one of the most honorable, straight-forward men in the colony. Yet this I saw, and saw it done over and over. People whose effects were landed — remember, these people were utter strangers there — hired a cart to cany their effects up into Melbourne. The cart is admitted into the yard, is loaded, but the goods neither measured nor weighed. A clerk says, off-hand, ' Those things are 3Z. or 41.,' or the like. The astonished people exclaim at the astounding sum ; de- MONSTROUS CHARGES FOR EVERYTHING. 9 clare that there is not a ton of them. ' Oh, yes,' replies the busy clerk, ' there's much more ; that's the price.' — (To the gatekeeper) — 'Don't let those things pass till they are paid for.' And away he hurries to fresh booty, and the people grumble, pay, and pass on. When my own turn came, and I had one cart loaded, a pert youngster, with a pen behind his ear, surveying them, said, ' They are 4V ' Butj my good fellow,' I observed, ' how do you know that? You have neither weighed nor measured them.' ' Oh, don't tell me,' said he, with cool effrontery ; ' I can guess to a pound.' » ' But, my friend,' I replied, ' I don't choose to be charged by guess. There is the list of all my effects, with their weight as taken at the docks, and charged for. By that I shall pay.' ' Don't let the dray out till paid ! ' shouted he to the gate keeper, and was moving off. ' Stop ! ' I said, seizing his arm, ' there is 3Z. for you ; the rest we will settle when the remainder arrive, accord ing to the ascertained London weight, and not a penny more.' ' Don't you believe it,' said he, trying to escape from my grasp. Don't let 'em out ! ' he shouted again. ' Then,' I observed, coolly, ' come along with me to your master, for I happen to know him, and I will tell him that you have neither measured nor weighed these things.' ' I will swear,' said he, without a moment's hesitation, ' that I have measured them all ! ' This fine young fellow, however, on second thoughts, preferred taking the 3Z. to appearing before his employer ; and allowed me to pay for the after-load by the London measurement. But to what an awful extent must the lo TWO YEARS IN VICTORIA. ever-pouring crowd of immigrants — strange, bewildered, and confounded by the din, bustle, dirt, and jostling on these wharves — have been plundered, during the. whole tide of this gold immigration ! Well may Melbourne wharfingers make enormous fortunes. The carriage up to the diggings is on a similar scale, owing, however, in a great measure, to the total want of roads. It is now 70Z. a ton, and has been 120Z., for about seventy or eighty miles ; at the lowest rate 1Z. per mile. Advancing into the town, you find the same extraor dinary scale of prices prevailing. The charge for every thing in the shops is about three hundred per cent, on the " prime cost. The importers sell to the retailers at cent, per cent, on their invoices. Such are the astonishing crowds pouring into the country, that there is the utmost difficulty in getting lodgings at any rate. Two small rooms, wretch edly furnished, let for 41. and 6Z. a week. Two empty ones, of the very meanest description, for 2Z. The inn keepers here have turned their stables into sleeping-places, and a man gives 5s. a night for a third of a horse's stall, good straw, a blanket, and rug. One Boniface entertains nightly seventy of these five-shilling recum- bents, netting the pretty sum of 17Z. 10s. nightly for stable room. Hundreds and hundreds even cannot procure this ac commodation, but camp on the waste outside of the town in their tents, the place having thus acquired the name of Canvas Town. The government charges 5s. per tent weekly for this occupation of the waste lands, or at the rate of 12Z. a year. This is the first evidence of a gov ernment in the countiy; for, furnishing no quays at the harbor, and no roads up the country, nor any light or pave ment in the streets, but mud up to the knees, you naturally MONSTROUS CHARGES FOR EVERYTHING. 11 think there is none. If there be a government in a coun try, however, and you fail to discover it in the shape of improvement, you are pretty sure to run your head against it in that of taxation. The Canvas Towners are, I im agine, the first inhabitants of these colonies who have had the honor of paying a land-tax. LETTER II. First Sample of Scenery — Appearance of Melbourne — Pleasant Environs — Extraordinary wooden Suburbs of Collingwood and Richmond — Price of Land and Rents — Artificial Obstructions to Colonization — A new Colony only a Government Pinfold — Glut of Merchants' Clerks — Wages of Servants — Want of Labor — Weedy Gardens — Great Nugget — Appearance of Emigrants coming from Sydney and Van Diemen's Land. Melbourne, September 28, 1852. Having effected a landing in this countiy bristling with hostile steel pens, and where they come down upon you with tremendous charges, — not of cavalry, but of city train-bands, all furnished with an awful artillery of prices, — let us endeavor to get some idea of the features of the place. We landed at Liardet's Beach, a low sandy shore, where there was a shabby sort of inn, looking English but slovenly, before which stood a shabby sort of long wagon meant for an omnibus, the driver of which generously offered to convey us the three miles to Melbourne for half- a-crown ; but having been locked up in a floating prison for thirteen thousand miles at sea, we preferred stretching our legs on terra firma. We marched on amid a wildish scene of sand, fern, odd sorts of shrubs, dusky evergreen trees with broken heads, and other lower trees the leaves of which seemed cut out of dingy green paper, and the stiff scrubby boughs stuck over with bottle-brushes. These, we found, were Banksias ; the trees like battered, wind- FIRST SAMPLE OF SCENERY. 13 torn willows, were gum-trees ; and besides these were others like great trees of broom, — Casuarinas, or Shiocs. All around us stood plenty of stumps of other trees cut off about a yard high, American fashion ; and amongst them, here and there, was erecting a new wooden hut. The scene was not especially paradisiacal, for a first glimpse, of this far-famed Austral Eden. We advanced along this level amid lagoons resounding with bull-frogs, and began to enter on green meadow land of a richer aspect. Then we arrived at a green eminence, called Emerald Hill, on which was an encampment of immigrants waiting for the roads drying that they might get to the diggings. The tents to our eyes looked thin and white for out-door life, and in front women were frying and boiling at fires. Farther on in the tents we heard singing and merriment. At some distance we saw a great stone bridge spanning the Yarra, and, on the farther bank of the river, Mel bourne, covering a largish range of gentle eminence. It reminded us strongly of the situation and appearance of Nottingham, only it wanted the castle on its precipitous rock at the end nearest to us. We hear that this resem blance has struck many. Now, some weeks ago at sea I had a dream of being at my brother's at Melbourne, and found his house on a hill at the farthest end of the town next to the open forest. His garden sloped a little down the hill to some brick buildings below ; and as you looked from the house, there were conservatories on the right hand by a lofty wall. As I looked from the windows I saw a wood of dusky- foliaged trees, having a somewhat segregated appearance in their heads ; that is, their heads did not blend into one mass, like those of our woods. ' There,' I said, ' I see your native forest of Eucalyptus. 14 TWO YEARS IN VICTORIA. This dream I told to my sons and several of the passen gers at the time, as we gossiped on deck. As we now walked over the meadows, long before we reached the town, I saw this very wood. ' There !' I exclaimed, * is the very wood of my dream. We shall find Dr. Howitt's house there ; ' and we did so. It stands exactly as I saw it, only looking newer : and there over the wall of the garden, is the wood precisely as I saw it, and now see it as I sit at the window writing. When I look on it, I seem to be looking into my dream. Melbourne is a considerable town, well situated, except that it is too far from the bay. As I have observed, it stands on rising ground parallel with the river, and has a valley running across it occupied by Swanston and Eliza beth streets. Towards this valley the town falls each way, and affords every convenience for drainage, when the age of drainage shall arrive ; at present, it is the age only of gold digging, speculating in town allotments, and making hay while the sunshine of unheard of prices lasts. At present, to use the language of the Chief Justice in a pam phlet which he has published on the gold fever, ' It is a capital that is neither lighted, paved, nor drained.' But all in good time. When we recollect that the place is not more than seventeen years old, it is a wonder. As might be expected, it has a straggling and unfinished appearance, with a considerable number of churches and chapels, standing in open waste places, which spaces one is as tonished to find lying idle where building land is so high. But, no doubt, the proprietors are comfortably watching a rising market for it. The streets are left of a noble width, and run at right angles, much on the principle of a hurdle ; but I look in vain for those open spaces left for squares and public gardens, which every new capital APPEARANCE OF MELBOURNE. 15 should jealously preserve, and which, once lost, can never be recovered. The houses, at present, are many of them merely of wood, of only one story, and where they have attained to two, have still a dwarfish look ; but this, I presume, is inevitable in a new settlement. When these streets are, as they will be in a few years, bounded by large and handsome houses and rich shops, they will present a striking aspect. What is most striking now is the num ber of wild backwoods-looking fellows, in broad hats, rough coats, and dirty boots, riding about the town, almost all at a canter, on very rough-looking animals. Whether the riders with their long wild hair and shaggy beards, or the horses, look more colonial, it were hard to say. But the countiy round Melbourne is pleasant. The site is elevated ground, round a good part of which the Yarra winds. At this time of the year, the grass is green, and the gum-trees scattered over it, give it a park-like appear ance. These trees, as most people are now aware, are evergreens. The greater proportion of them are of the genus Eucalyptus, and have foliage something resembling the willow, but of a dusky hue, which creates a monotony. Some of these are now covered with small white flowers, while the broom-like foliage of the shioc, and the yellow flowers ofthe acacias, or as they are hero called wattles, now in full bloom, vary in some degree the monotony, but do not present the vivid and tender variety of hues of an English spring. All the swampy and watery river flats are filled with the wattles and the tea-scrub, green and dense. These latter resemble low woods of cypress, arbor vits, and juniper, with here and there tall naked stems, with round tufted heads standing up above them. 16 TWO YEARS IN VICTORIA. I have been to pay my respects to the Governor, whose residence, for there is yet no government house, is merely a small wooden cottage, but elegantly furnished, and stand ing in spacious grounds, exhibiting a great variety of native trees and shrubs. I have also driven with my brother several miles into the country another way, beyond the river. Everywhere there is the same park-like look, the same erection of new houses of all kinds, from the gentle man's country seat, differing in little from the same class of houses in England, down to the little wooden hut, with tents pitched near it for accommodation which the house is too small to afford. Just over the hill beyond the town, there meets you an extraordinary spectacle. It is that of an immense suburb, stretching parallel with the town, from the high land to the north down into the vale of the Yarra, some two miles in extent. Standing on the hill, near the Bishop's palace, a new and heavy-looking erection of trapstone, the vale of Yarra lies at your feet. The opposite banks of the river, at half a mile distance or more, are somewhat ele vated, and well wooded ; and over the woods show them selves at a distance of twenty miles, the blue ranges of the Dandenong hills, the last spurs of the Snowy Moun tain chain in this direction. But the scene which arrests your attention, lies in the valley at your feet. It is that of an enormous extent of ground, covered all over with thousands of little tenements, chiefly of wood, and almost every one of them of only one story high. These extend as far as the eye can command the vale, the upper portion being called Collingwood, and the lower Richmond. These suburbs contain a population equal to that of Melbourne itself; and they have sprung up from the vast influx of population, chiefly since the gold discovery, and SUBURBS OF COLLINGWOOD AND RICHMOND. 17 from the prohibition by the Town Council of the further erection of wooden buildings in the city. This is one of the first things which has impressed me with the reality of the rapidly running torrent of immi gration. Here is a new settlement in all its newness. The houses are some of them complete, others are just erecting. A balder and more unattractive scene cannot meet the eye of man. Every single tree has been levelled to the ground ; is is one hard bare expanse, bare of all nature's attractions, a wilderness of wooden huts of Lilliputian dimensions ; and everywhere around and amongst them, timber and rubbish, delightfully interspersed with pigs, geese, hens, goats, and dogs innumerable. The streets, so called, which all run in the true gridiron or rather hurdle style, are not roads but quagmires, through which bullock drays drag fresh materials, with enormous labor ploughing the muddy soil up to their very axles. There is not the trace even of the idea of a garden amongst the whole of them. These diminutive tenements are set down on the open field, as if they were the abodes of a race of squatters, but they are all built on purchased allotments. But why so small ? why no gardens ? Simply because the ground is so preposterously dear. Here you have immediately a proof of that ingenuity by which men con trive to defeat the intentions of Providence. Providence has given vast new lands, on which the overflowing popu lation may settle ; but selfish and purblind governments immediately lay hold on that which was meant to be a free gift of God, and dole it out in such modicums that the pressing necessities of arriving immigrants compel them to bid up at auction against each other, till the land of these new countries lying with millions of miles of unoccupied soil, becomes far dearer than the dearest of that which they have left. 2 18 TWO YEARS IN VICTORIA. It is amazing to what a price this peddling and wicked system has forced up land round Melhourne. We think 1000Z. or 2000Z. per acre near London high, but here it fetches from 4000 Z. to 6000Z. ! Houses are frequently pointed out to me in the outskirts as having recently been sold, with a garden, for 10,000Z. or 12,000Z., which in the finest suburbs of London would not fetch above 2000Z. Little houses in the town which in London, in good streets, would let for 40Z. a year, here let for 400Z. My brother has built two good houses near his own, which would not let in London for more than 70Z. a year each, or 150Z. together ; he lets the two for l'ZOOl. And there is a single house near, worth in London or its environs perhaps 120Z. a year, for which the modest sum of 2000Z. a year is asked ! — a sum that would purchase it at home. When God gives to his children new and ample countries, what a pity that the devil should so instantly show himself in these fresh paradises, and totally spoil them ! The devils of government cupidity and trading speculation are the curse of all new colonies, — of none so much as this. An artificial barrier is instantly erected where people show a disposition to colonize a country ; the country itself is cut off, shut out, and literally ceases to exist for the crowd of immigrants, so long as it pleases government. Till then the ever-pressing throng is en closed, as it were, in a pound, till they ramp over and tread down each other, grow frantic and furious, and purchase the little trampled modicum of standing-place under each other's feet, at the most fabulous prices. It is true that not only the price of land, but the price of labor, and of all materials which labor has to procure and prepare for so sudden an inundation of population, as bricks, hewn stone, lime, wrought-timber, slabs, &c, must create a high scale of prices. The price of skilled labor WAGES OF SERVANTS. 19 ranging from 5Z. to 9Z. per week, and of unskilled from 10s. to 20s. per day. But had government made the prep arations which an able and Christian government should — had it said, 'A great, an unexampled crisis has arrived ; a mighty population is pouring in upon us ; equivalent prep arations must be made ; and, above all, there must be land cheap and abundant for the people to settle upon ' — though in the first-rate localities for business and in the immediate vicinity of the town, land must have a relatively high value, it could never have reached its present prepos terous scale, the present madness of land-gambling could never have originated. As to the demand for labor, in one department there is already a glut. Merchants' clerks and shopmen are a drug. There is, of course, but a limited demand for them, and it is fourfold supplied. If you make any inquiries on behalf of young men of that class, merchants exhibit to you lists of an appalling length, of such as have come with introductions to them. As you walk about the town there appears no lack of men and women ; but gar deners, grooms, and footmen, with their 70Z. or 100Z. a year, and their board — housemaids with 30Z., and cooks with 40Z. or 50Z., indicate the proportion between demand and supply, and the independent conduct of that class is another like evidence. When you advance into the countiy a few miles too, you find the want of labor stamped on the face of every thing. The gardens and pleasure-grounds of gentlemen, as well as the gardens of an humbler description, are reg ular wildernesses for the most part. They have literally nobody to cultivate them ; and I see arums, such as we cultivate in the house, now standing, putting up their white, marble-like, spathal flowers ; with jonquils, splendid cacti, the native indigo, prickly pears, roses red and white, stocks 20 TWO YEARS IN VICTORIA. as tall and large as shrubs, yellow jasmine, date-trees, tobacco-trees, India-rubber-trees, and a host of strange shrubs and curious flowers, which stand the year round in the gardens here, and may thus give you an idea of the mildness of the winters — all these choked by a mass of weeds up to your waist. It is strange to drive up to a good house, with its English look, its English approach, and English fields all round, and on reaching its shrub bery, finding it looking as if the place were deserted. The walks all overgrown, and the most gorgeous flowers and beautiful tropical plants and trees lost in a desert of weeds, whilst amongst them the cockatoo, parrots, and paroquets, flit about with strange voices, and the honey-bird, a bird covered with longitudinal black and white streaks, is busy sucking honey from splendid orange and scarlet flowers. We find it a most difficult thing to get our effects up out of the ship. There has been some dispute between the captain and the men employed to discharge the cargo, and they have struck work. This is no trivial matter for us ; for, independent of the delay it occasions us, not being able to prepare for an inland journey till we have these out, including our tent and cart, it costs us 32s. each time we make a visit to the ship. Meantime the number of people pouring into the colony from all quarters, is per fectly astounding. They arrive by five thousand and six thousand a week, and the issue of licenses at the diggings increases in equal proportion. Mrs. Gilbert, the wife of Mr. Gilbert the gold commissioner at Bendigo, tells us that at that digging, a few months ago, the monthly licenses were six thousand, then eight thousand, then ten thousand, and now they are twenty thousand. Yet there appears gold enough for all, and gold keeps up its value. A gentleman from Bendigo describes that digging as like a country fair five miles long; men, women, and children all mixed GREAT NUGGET. 21 amongst tents and huts of all sorts, with horses, and bullocks, and drays, and butchers' shambles, and the earth turned upside down everywhere, and vast quantities of gold got. The great nugget of twenty-eight pounds was dug there. Mr. Gilbert did all he could to persuade the man who found it, to entrust it to the care of the Gold Office till it was disposed of, and then to let him get the money invested for him — but in vain. He soon began to drink ; got a horse and rode all about, generally at full gallop, and when he met people, called out to inquire if they knew who he was, and then kindly informed them that he was ' the bloody wretch ' — that was his phrase — ' that had found the nug get.' At last he rode full speed against a tree, and nearly knocked his brains out. He is a hopelessly ruined man ; and I fear that will be the fate of hundreds, if not of thou sands, who will stumble precipitately on more gold than they have sense and prudence to deal with. Meeting his Excellency in the street, he asked if we had yet seen this twenty-eight pound nugget ; and, reply ing in the negative, he said if we went up at once to the Government Office, we should find Major Campbell there, who, on using his name, would show it to us ; but that it was on the very point of being removed to the Treasury, to be packed for England. The government here have given 1600Z. for it, and presented it to the Queen. We were just in time, and had a good examination of it. It is a very singular mass, but will look well amongst the treas ures of the royal palace. It has several small pieces of quartz and ironstone sticking in it. Just at one edge is the mark of the pick where the digger struck it ; and it is supposed that, had he not just caught the edge, it was so far at the side of his hole that it might have been missed 22 TWO YEARS IN VICTORIA. altogether. Another was found some time ago as large, but not so handsome in form. Having satisfied our curiosity, the Major called two young men belonging to the office, wrapped the nugget simply in his handkerchief, gave it to one of them to carry on his arm, And he and the other clerk attended him as guards. He purposely avoided having any policemen, their presence being likely to attract undesirable attention. The Treasury was not far off; but what a prize, had some of the ' old hands,*' as they call convicts, been aware of the transit ! Not long ago several of these escaped Van Demonians, or Penton- villains, made a rush into a gold broker's shop who had great heaps of gold exhibited in his window ; knocked him down, and attempted to carry off the gold ; but the people passing outside saw it, and seized them. A cleverer set of these gentry lately, as you would see by the newspapers, went on board the Nelson in the bay, tied up the few people on board, and carried off two thousand ounces of gold, and have never been heard of. The old lags, another name for convicts, are flocking over from Sydney and Van Dieman's Land by thousands, — there is no exaggeration in the word. And what sub jects they would afford the sketcher ! Yesterday as we went down to the ship, the steamers were coming in from those colonies. They were densely packed on the deck of the steamer, as you have seen Irish emigrants on the decks of vessels setting sail from Liverpool for America. What men ! and what costumes ! Huge burly fellows with broad, battered straw or cabbage-tree hats, huge beards, loose blue shirts, and trowsers yellow with clay and earth, many of them showing that they had already been digging in Sydney, where there is much gold, but according to fame, not so abundant or so pure as in this colony ; almost every man had a gun or pistols in his belt, APPEARANCE OF EMIGRANTS. 23 and a huge dog, half hound, half mastiff, led by a chain. Each had his bundle, containing his sacking to sleep upon, his blanket and such slight change of linen as these dig gers carry. They had, besides, their spades and picks tied together ; and thus they marched up the country, bearing with them all they want, and lying out under the trees. Every day this scene is repeated ; thousands follow upon thousands in the same style, and take the road at once towards the diggings. Bands of others attended by bul lock drays loaded with provisions, go overland all the way from Adelaide. They are wonderful times ! Sept. 28th. — Still we cannot get our goods up from the ship ; but we have spent a good part of the leisure time in receiving and paying visits. The chief people here have been very polite. I have had calls from I suppose nearly all of them, from the Governor, the Chief Justice, and members of the Executive and Legislative Council, the Mayor, and Town Councillors, downwards ; and it has cost me no little time to return the courtesy, some of them living several miles out of town. We now grow impa tient to be on our march up the countiy. LETTER III. SCENES IN MELBOURNE. Rage for gain in Tradesmen — Sending a Parcel — Price of Provis ions — News from the Diggings — Prices there — Land Mania — Mad Prices and Amazing Rents — Flower Show at Botanic Gar dens — A Walk into the Woodlands — A new Abbotsford — Gentleman's House and Grounds at Brighton — Melbourne Scenes and Characters — Luggage Thieves — Destroying a fine Site for a Town — River-side Slaughter-houses — Earth sown with Bottles — Caution to Women emigrating — Street Scenes — Successful Diggers breaking a horse — Independence of Servants — A Gentle man as Groom — Spring — Appearance of Gardens. Melbourne, Sept. 29, 1852. We have sent off a parcel and letters by the Australian, which sails to-day. But heaven preserve us ! What a piece of work it has been to get it off. The rage for gold here is not confined to the diggings ; it seems to pervade everybody and everything in the colony ; so the agent of the steam-packet company only wanted to charge me two guineas instead of ten and sixpence for the parcel to Lon don. Fortunately, I had the printed terms of the com pany, and showed them to the man ; here, they take care to keep these terms out of sight, and to put into their own pockets the modest sum of three times the amount they take on the company's account. At first, the man refused to take the proper, sum, and declared that he would not EXCESSIVE CHARGES. 25 take the packet at all. ' Be so good,' I observed, ' as to say that again, for I am writing to-day, and shall be glad to address a note to the packet company, to apprise them of the happy style in which you execute their business.' On this he took the parcel, but with the scowl of a thunder-cloud, and not deigning to give me another word. I left Alfred, to fill up the required bill of lading, but the amiable fellow was resolved to put me to all the trouble possible, in revenge for my mulcting him of his guinea and half booty, and insisted that Alfred should come and send me down again. Accordingly I had to march down again nearly a mile through their terrifically muddy streets, after a shower, for they have not yet a single square inch of pave. Arrived, I got all arranged, though with very few words, and very crusty ones, and with very surly looks. This rapacity seems to run through everything here. In the shops the prices they ask are actually amusing from their enormity, and if you seem to acquiesce in them pretty easily, they seem immediately to accuse themselves of having done themselves a serious injury by not asking more, and we have frequently found before leaving the shop, that they have quietly determined to lay on another fifty per cent, on articles the price of which we asked. I saw in the newspaper this morning, a thing which a good deal surprised me, — it was an instance of another person besides myself actually remonstrating against pay ing anything that the people here are pleased to ask, for really the fever of high prices appears to me to affect everybody, both payeVs and receivers, and that the payers gave themselves up as a matter of oourse to be victimized, hoping, probably, to victimize others in return. The case was this. A cabman had only demanded 4s. for driving vol. i. 3 26 TWO YEARS IN VICTORIA. two hundred yards in the rain, instead of 2s. 6d., the settled fare ; and some one was really found to object to an extra eighteen pence. Well, thought I, I was not so unreasonable after all, in objecting to be 'chiseled,' as they elegantly term it, out of two guineas instead of ten and sixpence. But why does not some patriot pull up a boatman or a wharfinger or two ? Why should poor cabmen alone be confined to a tariff where plunder is the order of the day ? Provisions are very high, and it is feared there may be a dearth of flour, unless brother Jonathan brings in a good deal of his surplus, and the merchants here have hitherto played him such tricks that he is afraid to bring it. When he has brought it in, they have dropped the price to below the remunerative scale, and Jonathan has come by a loss ; if, therefore, the people have now to suffer, either in price or quality, they have their merchants to thank for it, for Jonathan has plenty and to spare, and could have poured abundance into their warehouses and their bake houses, if he had not been too 'cute to be bitten twice by the over 'cute ' gum-suckers,' as the native Victorians are called. The value of houses and lands is running up here alongside of the value of labor and of all articles of food. The land allotment mania bids fair to surpass what it was previous to the disastrous 1842. A piece of land bought a few months ago for 120Z. was resold for 1,120Z. Every day the same thing occurs. A short time since a house and garden were bought for 4000Z., and would have been dear at that price in London, and to-day they. were resold for 12,000Z. Thus, whatever be the value of gold elsewhere, it is here only of one-third the value it was a few months ago. That which now requires twelve NEWS FROM THE DIGGINGS. 27 thousand sovereigns then was purchaseable for three thousand. The prices of all things are in proportion. Flour is now 36Z. per ton, and is expected shortly to be 40Z. Bread, the four pound loaf, is now 2s. ; hay is 40Z. per ton, actually more than sugar ! Oats, 15s. per bushel ; we have ten bushels in our cart, which cost us 4Z. in London. All tools and the like, which we brought out with us, are 100Z. per cent, higher, whilst long mining boots, for which we paid 1Z. 15s., are here worth 9Z. per pair. A. could sell his minie rifle for 30Z. Butter is 3s. per pound ; cabbages, Is. each ; cauliflowers, 2s. 6