The Book of the Bush - George Dunderdale (life books to read txt) 📗

a lady of unbounded bravery and great strength-a model pioneeress, with a talent for governing the opposite sex.* When at home on her station she did the work of a man and a woman too. She was the one in a thousand so seldom found. She not only did the cooking and housework, but she also rode after stock, drove a team, killed fat beasts, chopped wood, stripped bark, and fenced. She did not hanker after woman's rights, nor rail against the male sex. She was not cultured, nor scientific, nor artistic, nor aesthetic. She despised all the ologies. All great men respected her, and if the little ones were insolent she boxed their ears and twisted their necks. She conquered all the blackfellows around her land with her own right arm. At first she had been kind to them, but they soon became troublesome, wanted too much flour, sugar, and beef, and refused to go away when she ordered them to do so. Without another word she took down her stockwhip, went to the stable, and saddled her horse. Then she rounded up the blackfellows like a mob of cattle and started them. If they tried to break away, or to hide themselves among the scrub, or behind tussocks, she cut pieces out of their hides with her whip. Then she headed them for the Ninety-mile Beach, and landed them in the Pacific without the loss of a man. In that way she settled the native difficulty. The Neills, with a bullock team, the Buckleys and Moores, with horse teams, followed the track of the leading lady. The station-owners stayed at home and watched their fat stock, which soon became valuable, and was no longer boiled.

[Footnote] *Mrs. Buntine; died 1896.

On December 31st, 1851, there were in Tasmania twenty thousand and sixty-nine convicts. Six months afterwards more than ten thousand had left the island, and in three years forty-five thousand eight hundred and eighty-four persons, principally men, had left for the diggings. It was evident that Sir Wm. Denison would soon have nobody to govern but old women and children, a circumstance derogatory to his dignity, so he wrote to England for more convicts and immigrants, and he pathetically exclaimed, "To whom but convicts could colonists look to cultivate their lands, to tend their flocks, to reap their harvests?" In the month of May, 1853, Sir William wrote that "the discovery of gold had turned him topsy-turvy altogether," and he rejoiced that no gold had been discovered in his island. Then the Legislature perversely offered a reward of five thousand pounds to any man who would discover a gold field in Tasmania, but, as a high-toned historian observes, "for many years they were so fortunate as not to find it."

The convicts stole boats at Launceston, and landed at various places about Corner Inlet. Some were arrested by the police and sent back to Tasmania. Many called at Yanakie Station for free rations. Mr. Bennison applied for police protection, and Old Joe, armed with a carbine, was sent from Alberton as a garrison. Soon afterwards a cutter of about fifteen tons burden arrived at Corner Inlet manned by four convicts, who took the mainsail ashore and used it as a tent. They then allowed the cutter to drift on the rocks under Mount Singapore, and she went to pieces directly. While trying to find a road to Melbourne, they came to Yanakie Station, and they found nobody at the house except Joe, Mrs. Bennison, and an old hand. It was now Joe's duty to overawe and arrest the men, but they, although unarmed, overawed and arrested Joe. He became exceedingly civil, and after Mrs. Bennison had supplied them with provisions he showed them the road to Melbourne. They were arrested a few days afterwards at Dandenong and sent back to the island prison.


A NEW RUSH.

--

"And there was gathering in hot haste."

When gold was first discovered at Stockyard Creek, Griffiths, one of the prospectors, came to me with the intention of registering the claim, under the impression that I was Mining Registrar. He showed me a very good sample of gold. As I had not then been appointed registrar, he had to travel sixty miles further before he could comply with the necessary legal formalities. Then the rush began. Old diggers came from all parts of Victoria, New South Wales, Queensland, and New Zealand; also men who had never dug before, and many who did not intend to dig-pickpockets, horse thieves, and jumpers. The prospectors' claim proved the richest, and the jumpers and the lawyers paid particular attention to it. The trail of the old serpent is over everything. The desire of the jumpers was to obtain possession of the rich claim, or of some part of it; and the lawyers longed for costs, and they got them. The prospectors paid, and it was a long time before they could extricate their claim from the clutches of the law. They found the goldfield, and they also soon found an unprofitable crop of lawsuits growing on it. They were called upon to show cause before the warden and the Court of Mines why they should not be deprived of the fruit of their labours. The fact of their having discovered gold, and of having pegged out and registered their claim, could not be denied; but then it was argued by counsel most learned in mining law that they had done something which they should have omitted to do, or had omitted to do something else which they should have done, frail human beings as they were, and therefore their claim should be declared to belong to some Ballarat jumper. I had to sit and listen to such like legal logic until it made me sick, and ashamed of my species. Of course, justice was never mentioned, that was out of the question; if law and justice don't agree, so much the worse for justice.

Gold was next found at Turton's Creek, which proved one of the richest little gullies ever worked by diggers. It was discovered by some prospectors who followed the tracks which Mr. Turton had cut over the scrubby mountains, and so they gratefully gave his name to the gully, but I never heard that they gave him any of the gold which they found in it. A narrow track from Foster was cut between high walls of impenetrable scrub, and it soon became like a ditch full of mud, deep and dangerous. If the diggers had been assured that they would find heaven at the other end of it, they would never have tried to go, the prospect of eternal happiness having a much less attraction for them than the prospect of gold; but the sacred thirst made them tramp bravely through the slough. The sun and wind never dried the mud, because it was shut in and overshadowed by the dense growth of the bush. All tools and provisions were carried through it on the backs of horses, whose legs soon became caked with mud, and the hair was taken off them as clean as if they had been shaved with a razor. Most of them had a short life and a hard one.

The digging was quite shallow, and the gully was soon rifled of the gold. At this time there was a mining registrar at Foster, as the new diggings at Stockyard Creek were named, and some men, after pegging out their claim at Turton's Creek, went back down the ditch to register them at Foster. It was a great mistake. It was neither the time nor the place for legal forms or ceremony. Time was of the essence of the contract, and they wasted the essence. Other and wiser men stepped on to their ground while they were absent, commenced at once to work vigorously, and the original peggers, when they returned, were unable to dislodge them. Peter Wilson pegged out a claim, and then rode away to register it. He returned next day and found two men on it who had already nearly worked it out.

"This claim is mine, mates," said Peter; "I pegged it out yesterday, and I have registered it. You will have to come out."

One of the men looked up at Peter and said, "Oh! your name is Peter, isn't it? I hear you are a fighting man. Well, you just come down off that bare-legged horse, and I'll kill you in a couple of minutes, while I take a spell."

"It's no use your talking that way; you'll see I'll have the law on you, and you'll have to pay for it," replied Peter.

"You can go, Peter, and fetch the law as soon as you like. I don't care a tinker's curse for you or the law; all I want is the profits, and I'm going to have them."

This profane outlaw and his mate got the profits, cleared all the gold out of Peter's claim, and took it away with them.

It was reported in Melbourne that there was no law or order at Turton's Creek; that the diggers were treating the mining statutes and regulations with contempt; that the gold went to the strong, and the weakest went to the wall. Therefore, six of the biggest policemen in Melbourne were selected, stretched out, and measured in Russell Street barracks, and were then ordered to proceed to Turton's Creek and vindicate the majesty of the law. They landed from the steamer on the wharf at Port Albert, and, being armed with carbines and revolvers, looked very formidable. They proceeded on their journey in the direction of Foster, and it was afterwards reported that they arrived at Turton's Creek, and finding everybody quiet and peaceable, they came back again, bringing with them neither jumpers nor criminals. It was said, however, that they never went any further than the commencement of the ditch. They would naturally, on viewing it, turn aside and camp, to recruit their energies and discuss the situation. Although they were big constables, it did not follow they were big fools. They said the Government ought to have asphalted the ditch for them. It was unreasonable to expect men, each six foot four inches in height, carrying arms and accoutrements, which they were bound by the regulations to keep clean and in good order, to plunge into that river of mud, and to spoil all their clothes.

Turton's Creek was soon worked out, and before any professional jumpers or lawyers could put their fingers in the pie, the plums were all gone. The gully was prospected from top to bottom, and the hills on both sides were tunnelled, but no more gold, and no reefs were found. There was much speculation by geologists, mining experts, and old duffers as to the manner in which the gold had contrived to get into the creek, and where it came from; where it went to, the diggers who carried it away in their pockets knew well enough.

The diggers dispersed; some went to Melbourne to enjoy their wealth; some stayed at Foster to try to get more; some died from the extreme enjoyment of riches suddenly acquired, and a few went mad. One of the latter was brought to Palmerston, and remained there a day or two on his way to the Yarra Bend Lunatic Asylum. Having an inborn thirst for facts, I conversed with