Note Footnote 2 — Chapter X

The Colony itself was in a ferment, and night and day the roads to the locality of the New Rush were thronged with eager pedestrians. Scraps of news, picked up Heaven only knew how, about wonderful "finds" of gold, about great nuggets and bucketfuls of the precious metal, flew from mouth to mouth. The stories lost nothing in the transmission; for pennyweights were magnified to ounces, ounces to pounds, pounds to hundredweights. Troops of sturdy diggers, their heavy "swags" upon their backs, and their tin pots and pannikins buckled to their waists, marched on bravely and cheerfully, and felt not fatigue. Truly have such men been called the bone and sinew of the gold colonies. For thorough manliness, for sturdy courage, for indomitable perseverance, they are scarcely to be paralleled in the world's history. Strings of shambling Chinamen, with pigtails and sallow faces, dressed in half-modern costume, and bearing on their shoulders poles, upon which were slung their boots, picks, shovels, and "cradles,"[2] were also there, toiling patiently along to the El Dorado, and receiving with good humour the badinage of the Saxon and the Celt. They did not travel as swiftly as the Europeans; but, like the tortoise, they were slow and sure, and were not unlikely to win the race. Drays creaked and sighed in woeful tribulation beneath the weight of bags of flour and cases of spirits, sent off to the New Rush by watchful speculators. Many were the perils the goods encountered in gullies and creeks; and many were the accidents, most of them, however serious, having some ludicrous features. Here might be seen a waggon piled up with diggers' swags, chiefly Chinamen's, the owners being perched on the top, while the remainder trudged patiently along in the dust. There, a troupe of Nigger serenaders, with bones and banjos, their faces already blackened for the amusement of the wandering hordes. Here, a couple of drays, in which were packed cases of type and printing-press for the printing of a newspaper in the bush! There, a travelling theatre, consisting of a huge tent with all the paraphernalia of scenery and dresses: the leading tragedian (descended to dull earth) played the part of driver for the nonce, entertaining his cattle with morsels of morality from Hamlet or Macbeth; while the low-comedy man, his face woefully begrimed with dust, tramped sturdily along, bearing upon his shoulders the infant prodigy of the company. Day after day the roads were thronged with workers from all parts of the colony, and when night came, trees were cut down and fired, horses and oxen were turned loose, water was fetched from adjacent creeks, tea was prepared, and pipes were lighted, and tents and "mi-mis"[3] hastily thrown up, beneath which the nomades rested their weary limbs, hopefully and cheerfully. It was a pretty sight to see the fires glancing out along the miles of dusky bush, and it was pleasant to feel the sense of rest which had fallen upon the busy plains. The tinkling bells attached to the necks of hobbled horses led musically on the air, and from silver-toned flutinas, in the hands of rough-bearded men, sounded "Home, Sweet Home," and many other airs as touching, the strains of which lingered lovingly about the trees, whose dark forms were glanced with light from a clear and brilliant moon.