Chapter III (8)

All the rest of the men went aloft, and remained there during the night. Their clothing was soaked with water, and the weather was frosty and bitterly cold. Just before daylight, when the tide had ebbed, and the sea had gone down, the two women and the baby were brought below from the foretop, and all hands descended to the deck. They wanted to make a fire, but everything was wet, and they had to cut up some of the standing rigging which had been out of reach of the surf before they could find anything that would burn. With that a fire was made in the galley, and the women and baby were put inside. At sunrise it was found that the sea had washed up a ridge of sand near the ship, and, not wishing to pass another tide on board, all the crew and passengers went over the side, and waded through the shallow water until they came to a dry sand-pit. They were eleven in number, including the women and baby, and they waited until the boat came over from Snake Island and took them to the port. A little of the cargo was taken out of the 'Isabella', but in a few days she went to pieces.

Captain Taylor went to Hobarton, and bought from the insurers the schooner 'Sylvanus' which had belonged to him, and having been wrecked was then lying ashore on the coast. He succeeded in floating her off without much damage, and he ran her in the cattle trade for some time. He then sold her to Boys & Hall, of Hobarton, went to Sydney, bought the schooner 'Alert', and sailed her in the same trade until the discovery of gold. All the white seamen went off to the diggings, and he hired four Kanakas to man his craft.

On his last trip to Port Albert the pilot was on board, waiting for the tide. The pilot boat had been sent back to Sunday Island, the ship's boat was in the water, and was supposed to have been made fast astern by the crew. At break of day the pilot came on deck, and on taking a look round, he saw that the longboat had got away and was drifting towards Rabbit Island. He roared down the companion to Captain Taylor, "Your longboat's got adrift, and is off to Rabbit Island."

In another minute Captain Taylor was on deck. He gazed at his distant longboat and swore terribly. Then he took a rope and went for his four Kanakas; but they did not wait for him; they all plunged into the sea and deserted. The captain and pilot stood on deck watching them as they swam away, hand over hand, leaving foaming wakes behind like vessels in full sail. They were making straight for the longboat, and Davy said, "They will go away in her and leave us here in the lurch." But the captain said, "I think not." He was right. The Kanakas brought back the boat within hail of the schooner, and after being assured by the captain that he would not ropes-end them, they climbed aboard.

On returning to Hobarton Captain Taylor was seized with the gold fever. He laid up the 'Alert', went with his four men to Bendigo, and was a lucky digger. Then he went to New Zealand, bought a farm, and ploughed the waves no more.

In January, 1851, some buoys were sent to Port Albert and laid down in the channel. The account for the work was duly sent to the chief harbour master at Williamstown, but he took no notice of it, nor made any reply to several letters requesting payment. There was something wrong at headquarters, and Davy resolved to see for himself what it was. Moreover, he had not seen Melbourne for ten years, and he yearned for a change. So, without asking leave of anyone, he left Port Albert and its shipping "to the sweet little cherub that sits up aloft, and takes care of the life of Poor Jack," and went in his boat to Yanakie Landing. Mrs. Bennison lent him a pony, and told him to steer for two bald hills on the Hoddle Ranges; he could not see the hills for the fog, and kept too much to port, but at last he found a track. He camped out that night, and next morning had breakfast at Hobson's Station. He stayed one night at Kilcunda, and another at Lyle's station, near the bay. He then followed a track which Septimus Martin had cut through the tea-tree, and his pony became lame by treading on the sharp stumps, so that he had to push it or drag it along until he arrived at Dandenong, where he left it at an inn kept by a man named Hooks. He hired a horse from Hooks at five shillings a day. The only house between Dandenong and Melbourne was once called the South Yarra Pound, kept by Mrs. Atkinson. It was near Caulfield, on the Melbourne side of "No-good-damper swamp." Some blackfellows had been poisoned there by a settler who wanted to get rid of them. He gave them a damper with arsenic in it, and when dying they said, "No good, damper."

Davy landed in Melbourne on June 17th, 1851, put his horse in Kirk's bazaar, and stayed at the Queen's Head in Queen Street, where Sir William Clarke's office is now. The landlady was Mrs. Coulson, a widow. Next morning he was at the wharf before daylight, and went down the Yarra in the first steamer for Williamstown. He found that Captain Bunbury, the chief harbour-master, had gone away in the buoy-boat, a small schooner called the 'Apollo', so he hired a whale-boat, and overtook the schooner off the Red Bluff. When he went on board he spoke to Ruffles, master of the schooner, and said:

"Is the harbour-master aboard? I want to see him."

"Yes, but don't speak so loud, or you'll wake him up," replied Ruffles. "He is asleep down below."

Davy roared out, "I want to wake him up. I have come two hundred miles on purpose to do it. I want to get a settlement about those buoys at Port Albert. I am tired of writing about them."

This woke up Bunbury, who sang out:

"What's the matter, Ruffles? What's all that noise about?"

"It's the pilot from Port Albert. He wants to see you, sir, about the buoys."

"Tell him to come down below." Davy went.

Bunbury was a one-armed naval lieutenant, the head of the harbour department, and drew the salary. He had subordinate officers. A clerk at Williamstown did his clerical work, and old Ruffles navigated the 'Apollo' for him through the roaring waters of Port Philip Bay, while he lay in his bunk meditating on something. He said:

"Oh, is that you, Pilot? Well, about those buoys, eh? That's all right. All you have to do is go to my office in Williamstown, tell my clerk to fill in a form for you, take it to the Treasury, and you will get your money."

Davy went back to the office at Williamstown, had the form made out by the clerk, and took it to Melbourne in the steamer, the last trip she made that day. By this time the Treasury was closed. It was situated in William Street, where the vast Law Courts are now; and Davy was at the door when it was opened next morning, the first claimant for money. A clerk took his paper, looked over it, smiled, and said it was of no use whatever without Bunbury's signature. Davy started for Williamstown again in the second boat, found that Bunbury had gone away again in the 'Apollo', followed him in a whale boat, overtook him off St. Kilda, obtained his signature, and returned to the Treasury. Captain Lonsdale was there, but he said it was too late to pay money that day, and also that the form should be signed by someone at the Public Works office.

Then Davy's patience was gone, and he spoke the loud language of the sea. The frail building shook as with an earthquake. Mr. Latrobe was in a back room writing one of those gubernatorial despatches which are so painful to read. He had to suspend the pangs of composition, and he came into the front room to see what was the matter. Davy told him what was the matter in very unofficial words. Mr. Latrobe listened patiently and then directed Captain Lonsdale to keep the Treasury open until the account was paid. He also said the schooner 'Agenoria' had been wrecked on the day that Davy left Port Albert, and requested him to return to duty as soon as possible, lest other vessels might be wrecked for want of a pilot. "The sweet little cherub that sits up aloft" could not be depended on to pilot vessels over the bar.

Davy took his paper to the Public Works office in Queen Street. Here he found another officer bursting with dignity, who said: "There is already one signature too many on this account."

"Can't you scratch it out, then?" said Davy.

"We don't keep hens to scratch in this office," replied the dignified one, who took a ruler, and having drawn a line through the superfluous name, signed his own. When Davy went again to the Treasury with his account, Captain Lonsdale said he had not cash on hand to pay it, and deducted twenty pounds, which he sent to Port Albert afterwards, when the Government had recovered its solvency. His Honour the Superintendent might have assumed the classical motto, "Custos sum pauperis horti."

Davy put the money in his pocket, went to the Queen's Head, and, as it was already dark, he hired a man for ten shillings to show him the road through the wet wilderness of Caulfield and round No-good-damper Swamp. It was half-past eleven when he arrived at Hook's Hotel, and, as his pony was still too lame to travel, he bought the horse he had hired, and set out with the Sale mailman. At the Moe he found Angus McMillan, William Montgomery, and their stockmen, afraid to cross the creek on account of the flood, and they had eaten all their provisions. Before dark a black gin came over in a canoe from the accommodation hut on the other side of the creek, having heard the travellers cooeying. They told her they wanted something to eat, but it was too dangerous for her to cross the water again that night. A good fire was kept burning but it was a wretched time. It rained heavily, a gale of wind was blowing, and trees kept falling down in all directions. Scott, the hut-keeper, sent the gin over in the canoe next morning with a big damper, tea, sugar, and meat, which made a very welcome breakfast for the hungry travellers.

They stayed there two days and two nights, and as the flood was still rising, they resolved to try to cross the creek at all risks, preferring to face the danger of death by drowning rather than to die slowly of starvation. Each man took off his clothes, all but his flannel shirt and drawers, strapped them to the pommel of his saddle, threw the stirrup irons over the saddle, and stopped them with a string under the horse's belly to keep them from getting foul in the trees and scrub. In some places the horses had to climb over logs under water, sometimes they had to swim, but in the end they all arrived safely at the hut. They were very cold, and ravenously hungry; and while their clothes were drying before a blazing fire, they drank hot tea and ate up every scrap of food, so that Scott was obliged to accompany them to the next station for rations. He left the gin behind, having no anxiety about her. While he was away she could feed sumptuously on grubs, crabs, and opossums.

In March, 1852, when everybody was seized with the gold fever, Davy took it in the natural way. He again left Port Albert without a pilot and went to Melbourne to resign his office. But Mr. Latrobe promised to give him a salary of 500 pounds a year and a boat's crew of five men and a coxswain. The men were to have twelve-and-six a day and the coxswain fifteen shillings.

By this time the gold fever had penetrated to the remotest parts of Gippsland, and from every squatting station and every lonely hut on the plains and mountains men gathered in troops. They were leaving plenty of gold behind them at Walhalla and other places. The first party Davy met had a dray and bullocks. They were slowly cutting a road through the scrub, and their team was the first that made its way over the mountains from Gippsland to Melbourne. Their captain was 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 him from the wooden platform which overlooks the gaol yard. He was walking to and fro, and talking very cheerfully to himself, and to the world in general. He spoke well, and had evidently been well educated, but his ideas were all in pieces as it were, and lacked connection. He spoke very disrespectfully of men in high places, both in England and the Colonies; and remarked that Members of Parliament were the greatest rascals on the face of the earth. No man of sound mind would ever use such language as that.

Some years afterwards, while I was Collector of Customs at Port Albert, I received a letter from Melbourne to the following purport:

"Yarra Bend Asylum, ----------188--

"Strictly private and confidential

"Sir,--You are hereby ordered to take possession of and detain every vessel arriving at Port Albert. You will immediately proceed on board each of them, and place the broad arrow abaft the foremast six feet above the deck. You will thus cut off all communication with the British Empire. I may state that I am the lawful heir to the title and estates of a Scottish dukedom, and am deprived of the possession and enjoyment of my rightful station and wealth by the machinations of a band of conspirators, who have found means to detain me in this prison in order to enjoy my patrimony. You will particularly observe that you are to hold no communication whatever with the Governor of this colony, as he is the paid agent of the conspirators, and will endeavour to frustrate all efforts to obtain my rights. You will also be most careful to withhold all information from the Duke of Dunsinane, who is a member of the junior branch of my family, and at the head of the conspiracy. You will proceed as soon as possible to enrol a body of men for the purpose of effecting my deliverance by force of arms. As these men will require payment for their services, you will enter the Bank of Victoria at Port Albert, and seize all the money you will find there, the amount of which I estimate at ten thousand pounds, which will be sufficient for preliminary expenses. You will give, in my name, to the manager of the bank, a guarantee in writing for repayment of the money, with current rate of interest added, when I recover the dukedom and estates. Be careful to explain to him that you take the money only as a loan, and that will prevent the bank from laying any criminal charge against you. Should anything of the kind be in contemplation, you will be good enough to report progress to me as soon as possible, and I will give you all necessary instructions as to your future proceedings.

"I may mention that in seeking to obtain my title and estates, I am influenced by no mean or mercenary considerations; my sole desire is to benefit the human race. I have been employing all my leisure hours during the last nine years in perfecting a system of philosophy entirely new, and applicable to all times, to all nations, and to all individuals. I have discovered the true foundation for it, which, like all great inventions, is so simple that it will surprise the world it was never thought of before. It is this: "Posito impossibili sequitur quidlibet." My philosophy is founded on the firm basis of the Impossible; on that you can build anything and everything. My great work is methodical, divided into sections and chapters, perfect in style, and so lucid in argument that he who runs may read and be enlightened. I have counted the words, and they number so far seven hundred and two thousand five hundred and seventy-eight (702,578). Five years more will be required to complete the work; I shall then cause it to be translated into every language of the world, and shipped at the lowest rate of tonnage for universal distribution gratis. This will ensure its acceptance and its own beauty and intrinsic merits will secure its adoption by all nations, and the result will be human happiness. It will supersede all the baseless theories of science, religion, and morality which have hitherto confounded the human intellect.

"Extract from my Magnum Opus.

"We may reasonably suppose that matter is primordially self-existent, and that it imbued itself with the potentiality of life. It therefore produced germs. A pair of germs coalesced, and formed a somewhat discordant combination, the movements in which tended towards divergence. They attracted and enclosed other atoms, and, progressing through sleep and wakefulness, at last arrived at complete satisfaction, or perfect harmonic combination. This harmonic combination is death. We may say then, in brief, that growth is simply discordant currents progressing towards harmony. One question may be briefly noticed. It has been asked, when did life first appear on the earth? We shall understand now that the question is unnecessary. Life first appeared on the earth when the earth first appeared as an unsatisfied atom seeking combination. The question is rather, when did the inanimate first appear? It appeared when the first harmonic combination was effected. The earth is indeed to be considered as having grown up through the life that is inherent in it. Man is the most concentrated and differentiated outgrowth of that life. Mankind is, so to speak, the brain of the earth, and is progressing towards the conscious guidance of all its processes."

"Dunsinane."

It was not clear on what ground this noble duke based his authority over me; but I had been so long accustomed to fulfil the behests of lunatics of low degree that I was able to receive those of an afflicted lord with perfect equanimity. But as I could not see that my obedience would be rewarded with anything except death or Pentridge, I refrained from action. I did not place the broad arrow abaft of anything or anybody, nor did I make a levy on the cash in the Bank of Victoria.

GIPPSLAND AFTER THIRTY YEARS.

"A pleasing land of drowsihed it was, And dreams that wave before the half-shut eye."

For twelve years I did the Government stroke in Her Majesty's Court at Colac, then I was ordered to make my way to Gippsland.

The sun of wisdom shone on a new ministry. They observed that many of their officers were destitute of energy, and they resolved to infuse new life into the service, by moving its members continually from place to place. But officials live long, and the most robust ministry dies early, and the wisdom of one cabinet is foolishness to the next.

I took root so deeply in the soil of Gippsland that I became immoveable. Twice the Government tried to uproot me, but I remained there to the end of my official days.

Little reliable information about the country or its inhabitants was to be had, so I fondly imagined that in such a land, secured from contamination by the wicked world outside, I should find a people of primeval innocence and simplicity, and the long-forgotten lines returned to my memory:

"Beatus ille qui procul negotils, Ut prisca gens mortalium."

It was summer time, and the weather was serene and beautiful, when in the grey dusk of the evening we sailed through the Rip at Port Philip Heads. Then began the troubles of the heaving ocean, and the log of the voyage was cut short. It ran thus:

"The ship went up, and the ship went down; and then we fell down, and then we was sick; and then we fell asleep; and then we was at Port Albert; and that's all I knows about it."

I walked along the one street past the custom house, the post-office, and the bank, about three hundred yards and saw nothing beyond but tea-tree and swamps, through which ran a roughly-metalled road, leading apparently to the distant mountains. There was nothing but stagnation; it was the deadest seaport ever seen or heard of. There were some old stores, empty and falling to pieces, which the owners had not been enterprising enough to burn for the insurance money; the ribs of a wrecked schooner were sticking out of the mud near the channel; a stockyard, once used for shipping cattle, was rotting slowly away, and a fisherman's net was hanging from the top rails to dry. Three or four drays filled with pigs were drawn up near the wharf; these animals were to form part of the steamer's return cargo, one half of her deck space being allotted to pigs, and the other half to passengers. In case of foul weather, the deck hamper, pigs and passengers, was impartially washed overboard.

An old man in a dirty buggy was coming along the road, and all the inhabitants and dogs turned out to look and bark at him, just as they do in a small village in England, when the man with the donkey-cart comes in sight. To allay my astonishment on observing so much agitation and excitement, the Principal Inhabitant introduced himself, and informed me that it was a busy day at the Port, a kind of market day, on account of the arrival of the steamer.

I began sorrowfully to examine my official conscience to discover for which of my unatoned-for sins I had been exiled to this dreary land.

Many a time in after years did I see a stranger leave the steamer, walk, as I had done, to the utmost extremity of the seaport, and stand at the corner of the butcher's shop, gazing on the swamps, the tea-tree, and the far-away wooded hills, the Strelezcki ranges. The dismal look of hopeless misery thatstole over his countenance was pitiful to behold. After recovering the power of speech, his first question was, "How is it possible that any man could ever consent to live in a hole like this?" Here the Principal Inhabitant intervened, and poured balm on the wounded spirit of the stranger. He gently reminded him that first impressions are not always to be relied on; and assured him that if he would condescend to take up his abode with us for two or three years, he would never want to live anywhere else. The climate was delicious, the best in the world; it induced a feeling of repose, and bliss, and sweet contentment. We had no ice or snow, or piercing blasts in winter; and the heat of summer was tempered by the cool breezes of the Pacific Ocean, which gently lapped our lovely shores. The land, when cleared, was as rich and fertile as the farmer's heart could wish, yielding abundant pasturage both in summer and winter. The mountains sent down to us unfailing supplies of the purest water; we wanted no schemes of irrigation, for

"Green are our fields and fair our flowers, Our fountains never drumlie."

We had no plagues of locust, no animal or insect pests to destroy our crops or herbage. Rabbits had been introduced and turned loose at various times, but, instead of multiplying until they had become as numerous as the sand on the seashore, as had been the case in other parts of Australia, in Gippsland they invariably died; and it had been abundantly proved that rabbits had no more chance of living there than snakes in Ireland. And with regard to the salubrity of the climate, the first settlers lived so long that they were absolutely tired of life. Let him look at the cemetery, if he could find it. After thirty years of settlement it was almost uninhabited --neglected and overgrown with tussocks and scrub for want of use.

It will be gathered from this statement of the Principal Inhabitant that Gippsland had really been discovered and settled about thirty years before; but mountains and sea divided it from the outside world, and, on account of the intense drowsiness and inactivity which the delicious air and even temperature of the climate produced, the land and its inhabitants had been forgotten and unnoticed until it had been rediscovered, and its praises sung by the enterprising Minister of the Crown before mentioned.

Following the example of the cautious cat when introduced into a strange house, I investigated every corner of the district as far as the nature of the country would permit; and I found that it contained three principal corners or villages about three miles apart, at each of which the police magistrate and clerk had to attend on certain days, business or no business, generally the latter. It was, of course, beneath the dignity of a court to walk officially so far through the scrub; so the police magistrate was allowed sixty pounds per annum in addition to his salary, and the clerk whom I relieved fifty pounds, to defray the expense of keeping their horses.

"Away went Gilpin, and away Went Gilpin's hat and wig."

I bought a waggonette, and then began to look for a horse to draw it. As soon as my want became known it was pleasing to find so many of my neighbours willing to supply it. Cox, the gaoler, said he knew of a horse that would just suit me. It belonged to Binns, an ex-constable, who was spending a month in gaol on account of a little trouble that had come upon him. Cox invited me into his office, and brought Binns out of his cell.

"Yes," said Binns "I have a horse, and there's not another like him on the island," (these men always meant Van Diemen's Land when they said "the island," forgetting occasionally that they had crossed the straits, and were in a land of freedom) "as good a goer as ever carried a saddle, or wore a collar. I wouldn't sell him on no account, only you see I'm hard up just now."

"What is his age?" I enquired.

"Well, he's just rising ten. He has been used a bit hard, but you won't overwork him, and he'll do all the law business you want as easy as winking. He's the best trotter on the island, and has won many a stake for me. When I took Johnny-come-lately to gaol in Melbourne for stealing him, he brought me back in less time than any horse ever did the distance before or since. And you can have him dirt cheap. I'll take ten pounds for him, and he's worth twenty pounds of any man's money."

Lovers' vows and horsedealers' oaths are never literally true; it is safer to receive them as lies. I thought it would be prudent to try this trotter before buying him, so Binns signed an order, in a very shaky hand, to the man in charge of his farm, to let me have the horse on trial. When I harnessed and put him in between the shafts he was very quiet indeed. I took a whip, not for the purpose of using it, but merely for show; a horse that had won so many races would, of course, go without the lash.

When I was seated and requested him to start, he began walking very slowly, as if he had a load of two tons weight behind him, and I never weighed so much as that. I had to use the whip, and at last after a good deal of reflection he began to trot, but not with any speed; he did not want to win anything that day. I remarked that his ears looked dead; no sound or sight of any kind disturbed the peace of his mind. He evidently knew this world well and despised it; nothing in it could excite his feelings any more.

Halfway up the Water Road I met Bill Mills, a carrier. He stopped his team and looked at mine.

"Have you bought that horse, Mister?" he said.

"Not yet; I am only trying him," I replied. "Do you know him?"

"Know him? I should think I did. That's old Punch. I broke him into harness when he was three off. He nearly killed me; ran away with me and my dog-cart among the scrub at the racecourse swamp, and smashed it against a honeysuckle."

"Is that long ago?" I enquired.

"Long ago? Let me see. That horse is twenty year old if he's a day. He'll not run away with you now; no fear; he's quite safe. Good-day, Mister. Come on, Star;" and Bill touched his leader with his whip.

When I arrived at the court-house, I made a search in the cause list book, and found that Johnny-come-lately had been sent to gaol just sixteen years before for stealing Old Punch, so I restored that venerable trotter to its owner.

I had soon more horses offered to me for trial, every old screw within twenty miles being brought to me for inspection. The next animal I harnessed belonged to Andrew Jackson, and was brought by Andrew Jackson, junior, who said his father could let me have it for a month on trial. Jackson, junior, was anxious to go away without the horse, but I told him to wait a bit while I put on the harness. The animal was of a mouse colour, very tall, something like a giraffe; and by the time I got him between the shafts, I could see that he was possessed by a devil of some kind. It might be a winged one who would fly away with me; so, in order to have a clear course, I led him through the gateway into the middle of the road, and while Jackson, junior, held his head, I mounted carefully into the trap. I held the lines ready for a start, and after some hesitation the giraffe did start, but he went tail foremost. I tried to reverse the engine, but it would only work in one direction. He backed me into the ditch, and then across it on to the side path, then against the fence, bucking at it, and trying to go through and put me in the Tarra. I told Andrew, junior, to take the giraffe home to his parent, and relate what he had seen.

My next horse was a black one from Sale, and he also was possessed of a devil, but one of a different species. He was named Gilpin, and the very name ought to have been a warning to me if I had had sense enough to profit by it. Just as I sat down, and took the reins, and was going to observe what he would do, he suddenly went away at full gallop. I tried to pull him in, but he put his chin against his chest, and the harder I pulled the faster he flew. The road was full of ruts, and I was bumped up and down very badly. My hat went away, but, for the present, my head kept its place. I managed to steer safely as far as the bridge across the Tarra but, in going over it, the horse's hoofs and whirling wheels sounded like thunder, and brought out the whole population of Tarraville to look at me. It was on a Sunday afternoon; some good people were singing hymns in the local chapel, and as I passed the turn of the road, they left the anxious benches, came outside in a body, and gazed at me, a bare-headed and miserable Sabbath-breaker going swiftly to perdition. I also was on a very anxious bench. But now there was a long stretch of good road before me, and I made good use of it. Instead of pulling the horse in, I let him go, and encouraged him with the whip to go faster, being determined to let him gallop until either he or the sun went down. Then the despicable wretch slackened his pace, and wanted to come to terms. So I wheeled him round and whipped him without mercy, making him gallop all the way home again. I did not buy him.

But the next horse I tried was comparatively blameless, so I bought him, and at the end of the first month sent in a claim to the Law Department for the usual allowance. I was curtly informed that the amount had been reduced from fifty pounds to ten pounds for my horse, although sixty pounds was still allowed to the other horse for travelling the same distance, the calculation evidently being based on the supposition that the police magistrate's horse would eat six times as much as mine. Remonstrance was vain, and I found I had burdened myself with an animal, possessing no social or political influence whatever. I knew already that the world was governed without wisdom, and I now felt that it was also ruled with extreme meanness.

And even after my horse was condemned to starve on ten pounds per annum, the cost of justice was still extravagant. Without reckoning the expense incurred in erecting and maintaining three court houses, and three police stations, and paying three policemen for doing next to nothing, I ascertained from the cause lists that it cost the Government fourteen pounds sterling every time we fined Terry, the cobbler, five shillings for being drunk; and Terry did not always pay the fines. What ails British law is dignity, and the insufferable expense attending it. The disease will never be cured until a strong-minded Chief Justice shall be found, who has sense enough to sit on the bench in his native hair, and to take off his coat when the thermometer rises to eighty degrees. It was in that manner Judge Winstanley kept court at Waterloo in Illinois, and we had there quicker justice, cheaper laws, and better manners than those which this southern hemisphere yet exhibits. As to the lawyers, if we did not like them, we could lynch them, so they were sociable and civil. Moreover, Prairie de Long was discovered and settled nearly twenty years before Australia Felix was heard of.

The three villages had a life-long feud with, and a consuming jealousy of, each other. Until my arrival I was not aware that there were three such places as Palmerston, Alberton, and Tarraville, claiming separate and rival existences. I had a notion that they were merely straggling suburbs of the great city and seaport, Port Albert. But it was a grievous mistake. I asked a tall young lady at the hotel, who brought in some very salt fish that took the skin off the roof of my mouth, if she could recommend the society of these villages, and if she would favour me with her opinion as to which would be the best place to select as a residence, and she said, "The people there are an 'orrid lot." This was very discouraging; but, on making further enquiries, I found she only expressed the opinion which the inhabitants of these centres of population held of each other; and it was evident that I should have to demean myself with prudence, and show no particular affection for one place more than for another, or trouble would ensue. Therefore, as soon as occasion offered, I took a house and paddock within easy distance of all the three corners, so that when the Government allowance had reduced my horse to a skeleton, I might give him a spell on grass, and travel to the courts on foot. The house was on a gentle rise, overlooking a rich river flat. It had been built by a retainer of Lord Glengarry, who had declined to follow any further the fortunes of his chief when he had closed his dairying operations at Greenmount. A tragedy had been enacted in it some years before, and a ghost had often since been seen flitting about the house and grounds on moonlight nights. This gave an aristocratic distinction to the property, which was very pleasing, as it is well known that ghosts never haunted any mansions or castles except such as have belonged to ancient families of noble race. I bought the estate on very reasonable terms, no special charge being made for the ghost.

The paddock had been without a tenant for some time, but I found it was not unoccupied. A friendly neighbour had introduced his flock of sheep into it, and he was fattening them cheaply. I said, "Tityre, tu patulae recubans sub tegmine fayi, be good enough to round up your sheep and travel." Tityrus said that would be all right; he would take them away as soon as they were ready for the butcher. It would be no inconvenience to me, as my horse would not be able to eat all the grass. The idea of paying anything did not occur to him; he was doing me a favour. He was one of the simple natives. As I did not like to take favours from an entire stranger, the sheep and the shepherd sought other pastures beyond the winding Tarra.

The dense tea-tree which bordered the banks of the river was the home of wild hogs, which spent the nights in rooting up the soil and destroying the grass. I therefore armed myself with a gun charged with buckshot, and went to meet the animals by moonlight. I lay in ambush among the tussocks. One shot was enough for each hog; after receiving it he retired hastily into the tea-tree and never came out again.

After I had cleared my land from sheep and pigs, the grass began to grow in abundance; and passing travellers, looking pensively over the fence, were full of pity for me because I had not stock enough to eat the grass. One man had a team of bullocks which he was willing to put in; another had six calves ready to be weaned; and a third friend had a horse which he could spare for a spell. All these were willing to put in their stock, and they would not charge me anything. They were three more of the simple natives.

I would rather buy forty cows than one horse, because, even allowing for the cow's horns, the horse has so many more points. I wanted a good cow, a quiet milker, and a farmer named Ruffy offered to sell me one. He was very rough indeed, both in words and work. He showed me the cow, and put her in the bail with a big stick; said she was as quiet as a lamb, and would stand to be milked anywhere without a leg-rope. "Here Tom," he roared to his son, "bring a bucket, and come and milk Daisy without the rope, and show the gentleman what a quiet beast she is." Tom brought a bucket, placed the stool near the cow, sat down, and grasped one of the teats. Daisy did not give any milk, but she gave instead three rapid kicks, which scattered Tom, the bucket, and the stool all over the stockyard. I could not think of anything that it would be safe to say under the circumstances, so I went away while the farmer was picking up the fragments.

GOVERNMENT OFFICERS IN THE BUSH.

"Satan finds some mischief still For idle hands to do."

Although I had to attend at three courts on three days of each week, my duties were very light, and quite insufficient to keep me out of mischief; it was therefore a matter of very great importance for me to find something else to do. In bush townships the art of killing time was attained in various ways. Mr. A. went on the street with a handball, and coaxed some stray idler to join him in a game. He was a young man of exceptional innocence, and died early, beloved of the gods. Mr. B. kept a pair of sticks under his desk in the court house, and made a fencing school of the space allotted to the public. Some of the police had been soldiers, and were quite pleased to prove their skill in arms, and show how fields were won. As a result there were more breaches of the peace inside the court than outside. Mr. C. tried to while away his lonely hours by learning to play on a violin, which he kept concealed in a corner between a press and the wall of his office. He executed music, and doubled the terrors of the law. Intending litigants stood transfixed with horror when they approached the open door of his office, and listened to the wails and long-drawn screeches which filled the interior of the building; and every passing dog sat down on its tail, and howled in sympathetic agony with the maddening sounds.