THE DIGGINGS, THE BUSH,
AND MELBOURNE;
OR,
REMINISCENCES OF THREE YEARS’ WANDERINGS
IN VICTORIA.
GLASGOW:
G. D. MACKELLAR, 18 Renfield Street.
PRICE NINEPENCE.
1864.
PREFACE.
The following short narrative was written specially for a small circle of intimateacquaintances, who varied the dulness of village life by meeting once a week toread manuscript essays and selections from favourite authors. The time allowedfor reading being limited, and the audience being partly composed of young people,I confined myself mainly to personal experience. As many of the company hadpreviously heard me relate in an off-hand way, the leading incidents, detectionwould have been sure to follow any attempt at spicing my story with fiction.
The incidents are selections merely from three years’ recollections of the Colony.Some who have never been further from home than in their annual visit to awatering place, have been pleased to call them adventures. The term may appeartoo strong to those who like the writer have reclined by a bush fire, listeningto the stories of old hands, but as there may be much serious living withoutbroken bones, I submit this brief history to those who think so.
James Armour.
Gateshead, April, 1864.
THREE YEARS IN VICTORIA.
Chapter I.
MARCH TO BENDIGO.
Early in the month of September, 1852, I landed at Cole’s Wharf in Melbourne,one of four hundred passengers newly arrived from Liverpool by the“Lady Head” sailing ship. While yet at sea I had agreed to join a partyof young men who intended starting for the diggings without delay. Wefound the lodging-houses overcrowded, with table-tops, chests, and chairsin use for bedsteads, and we were made acquainted with a considerable portionof the town before we found accommodation. Our capital being smallwe grudged the price asked, but were disposed to be thankful on witnessingnext morning the shifts that numbers of our shipmates had been put to ingetting shelter for the night. Some were lying among the barrels and balesof goods that lay lumbering the wharf. Some two dozen had made freewith some piles of planks and built off-hand houses for themselves, but thenight had been rainy, the roofs had leaked, and they looked anything butrefreshed. Among these latter I observed a mother with a family of youngchildren. A shawl hung across the opening that faced the road, but it wastoo scanty to screen her as she sat with a looking-glass before her settingher hair in order. The husband was absent, and the children sat withcomfortless wonder in their young eyes, gazing at the rude throng that wasbeginning the bustle of the day.
I heard my name called, and turning to look, I recognised a late mess-mateperched on the top of an old waggon-shaped boiler, th