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all. In short, we, as well as our respected Wesleyan friend, felt ourselves completely "sold."

The only attempt at dishonesty practiced upon our branch which I can recollect while at Majorca was one of fraud, and not of force. We had just been placed in telegraphic communication with the other towns in the colony. The opening of the telegraph was celebrated, as usual, by the Town Council "shouting" Champagne. Some time before, a working-man, who had some money deposited with us, called in a fluster to say his receipts had been stolen. This was noted. Now came a telegram from Ballarat, saying that a receipt of our branch had been presented for payment, and asking if it was correct. We answered sharp, ordering the man to be detained. He was accordingly taken into custody, handed over to the police, and remanded to Newstead, where the receipt had been stolen. Newstead is a long way from Majorca, but our manager drove over with a pair of horses to give his evidence. It turned out that our customer's coat, containing the receipt, had been stolen while he was at his work. The thief was identified as having been seen hanging about the place, and the result was that he was committed, tried, and duly convicted. So you see that we are pretty smart out here, and not a long way behind the old country after all.

CHAPTER XVI.

PLACES ABOUT.

Visit to Ballarat.-The Journey by Coach.-Ballarat founded on Gold.— Description of the Town.-Ballarat "Corner."-The speculative Cobbler. - Fire Brigades. — Return Journey.-Crab-holes.-The Talbot Ball.-The Talbot Fête.-The Avoca Races.-Sunrise in the Bush.

ONE of the most interesting visits to places that I made while staying at Majorca was to Ballarat, the mining capital of the colony, sometimes called here the Victorian Manchester. The time of my visit was not the most propitious, for it was shortly after a heavy fall of rain, which had left the roads in a very bad state. But I will describe my journey.

Three of us hired a one-horse buggy to take us on to Clunes, which lay in our way. The load was rather too much for the horse, but we took turn and turn about at walking, and made it as light for the animal as possible. At Clunes I parted with my companions, who determined to take the buggy on to Ballarat. I thought it preferable to wait for the afternoon coach; and, after being hospitably entertained at dinner by the manager of our branch bank at Clunes, I took my place in the coach for Ballarat.

We had not gone more than about a mile when the metaled road ended and the Slough of Despond beganthe road so called, though it was little more than a deep mud-track, winding up a steepish ascent. All the pas

sengers got out and walked up the hill. In the distance we saw a buggy in difficulties. I had already apprehend. ed the fate of my mates who had gone on before me, and avoided sharing it by taking my place in the coach, But we were in little better straits ourselves. When we got up to the buggy, we found it fairly stuck in the mud in one of the worst parts of the road, with a trace broken. I got under the rails of the paddock in which the coach passengers were walking-for it was impossible to walk in the road-and crossed over to where my former mates were stuck. They were out in the deep mud, almost knee-deep, trying to mend the broken trace. Altogether they looked in a very sorry plight.

At the top of the hill we again mounted the coach, and got on very well for about three miles, until we came to another very bad piece of road. Here we diverged from it altogether, and proceeded into an adjoining field, so as to drive alongside the road, and join it a little farther on. The ground looked to me very soft, and so it was; for we had not gone far when the coach gave a plunge, and the wheels sank axle-deep in a crab-hole. All hands had now to set to work to help the coach out of the mud, while the driver urged his horses with cries and cracks of his long whip. But it was of no use. The two wheelers were fairly exhausted, and their struggling only sent them deeper into the mud. The horses were then unharnessed, and the three strongest were yoked in a line, so as to give the foremost of them a better foothold. But it was still of no use. It was not until the mud round the wheels had been all dug out, and the passengers lifted the hind wheels and the coach bodily up, that the horses were at last able to extricate the vehicle

By this time we were all in a sad state of dirt and wet, for the rain had begun to fall quite steadily.

Shortly after, we reached the halfway house and changed horses. We now rattled along at a pretty good pace. But every now and then the driver would shout "Look out inside!" and there would be a sudden roll, followed by a jerk and pitch combined, and you would be thrown over upon your opposite neighbor, or he upon you. At last, after a rather uncomfortable journey, we reached the outskirts of a large town, and in a few minutes more we found ourselves safely jolted into Ballarat.

I am not at all up in the statistics of the colony, and can not tell the population or the number of inhabited houses in Ballarat.* But it is an immense place, second in importance in the colony only to Melbourne. Big though it be, like most of these up-country towns, Ballarat originated in a rush. It was only in September, 1851, that a blacksmith at Buningong, named Hiscocks, who had long been searching for gold, traced a mountain torrent back into the hills toward the north, and came upon the rich lode which soon became known as the "Ballarat Diggings." When the rumor of the discovery got abroad, there was a great rush of people to the place, accompanied by the usual disorders; but they gradually settled down, and Ballarat was founded. The whole soil of the place was found to contain more or less gold. It was gathered in the ranges, on the flats, in the water-courses, and especially in the small veins of blue clay, lying almost above the so-called "pipe-clay." The gold was, to all appearance, quite pure, and was found in

*The population in 1857 was 4971; in 1861, 21,104. It is now nearly 50,000.

rolled or water-course irregular lumps of various sizes, from a quarter or half an ounce in weight, sometimes incorporated with round pebbles of quartz, which appeared to have formed the original matrix.

The digging was at first for the most part alluvial, but when skilled miners arrived from England operations were begun on a much larger scale, until now it is conducted upon a regular system, by means of costly machinery and highly organized labor. To give an idea of the extensive character of the operations, I may mention that one company, the Band of Hope, has erected machinery of the value of £70,000. The main shaft, from which the various workings branch out, is 420 feet deep; and 350 men are employed in and about the mine. It may also be mentioned that, the deeper the workings have gone, the richer has been the yield of gold. This one company has, in a comparatively short time, raised gold worth over half a million sterling; the quantity produced by the Ballarat mines, since the discovery of gold in September, 1851, to the end of 1866, having been worth about one hundred and thirty millions sterling.

The morning after my arrival in Ballarat I proceeded to survey the town. I was certainly surprised at the fine streets, the large buildings, and the number of people walking along the broad pathways. Perhaps my surprise was magnified by the circumstance that nearly fifteen months had passed since I had been in a large town, and, after Majorca, Ballarat seemed to me like a capital. After wandering about the streets for half an hour, I looked into the court-house, where an uninteresting case of drunkenness was being heard. I next went into the adjoining large building, which I found to be

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