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CHAPTER X.

MY NEIGHBORHOOD AND NEIGHBORS.

"Dining out."-Diggers' Sunday Dinner. -The old Workings.—The Chinamen's Gardens.-Chinamen's Interiors.-The Cemetery.—The High Plains.-The Bush.-A Ride through the Bush.-The Savoyard Wood-cutter.-Visit to a Squatter.

THERE is no difficulty in making friends in Victoria. New chums from home are always made welcome. They are invited out, and hospitably entertained by people of all classes. But for the many kind friends I made in Majorca and its neighborhood I should doubtless have spent a very dull time there. As it was, the eighteen months I lived up-country passed pleasantly and happily.

The very first Sunday I spent in Majorca I" dined out." I had no letters of introduction, and therefore did not owe my dinner to influence, but to mere free-andeasy hospitality. Nor did the party with which I dined belong to the first circles, where letters of introduction are of any use; for they were only a party of diggers. I will explain how it happened.

After church my manager invited me to a short walk in the neighborhood. We went in the direction of M'Cullum's Creek, about a mile distant. This was the village at the creek which I passed on the evening of my first drive from Maryborough. Crossing the creek, we went up into the range of high ground beyond, and from the top of the hill we had a fine view of the sur

rounding country. Majorca lay below, glistening amid its hillocks of pipe-clay. The atmosphere was clear, and the sky blue and cloudless. Though the town was two miles distant, I could read some of the names on the large canvas sign-boards over the hotel doors; and with the help of an opera-glass I easily distinguished the windows of a house six miles off. The day was fine and warm, though it was midwinter in June; for it must be borne in mind that the seasons are reversed in this southern hemisphere.

Descending the farther side of the hill, we dropped into a gully where we shortly came upon a little collection of huts roofed with shingle. The residents were outside, some amusing themselves with a cricket-ball, while others were superintending the cooking of their dinners at open fires outside the huts. One of the men having recognized my companion, a conversation took place, which was followed by an invitation to join them at dinner. As we were getting rather peckish after our walk, we readily accepted their proffered hospitality. The mates took turn and turn about at the cooking, and when dinner was pronounced to be ready we went into the hut.

The place was partitioned off into two rooms, one of which was a sleeping apartment, and the other the dining-room. It was papered with a gay-colored paper, and photographs of friends were stuck up against the wall. We were asked to be seated. To accommodate the strangers, an empty box and a billet of wood were introduced from the outside. I could not say the table was laid, for it was guiltless of a table-cloth; indeed, all the appointments were rather rough. When we were seat

ed, one of the mates, who acted as waiter, brought in the smoking dishes from the fire outside, and set them before us. The dinner consisted of roast beef and cauliflower, and a capital dinner it was, for our appetites were keen, and hunger is the best of sauces.

We were told that on Sundays the men usually had pudding; but "Bill," who was the cook that week, was pronounced to be "no hand at a plum duff." We contrived, however, to do very well without it.

I afterward found that the men were very steady fellows-three of them English and one a German. They worked at an adjoining claim; and often afterward I saw them at our bank, selling the gold, or depositing their savings.

After dinner we had a ramble through the bush with our hosts, and then, toward dusk, we wended our way back to the township. Such was my first experience of diggers' hospitality in Australia, and it was by no means the last.

Another afternoon we made an excursion to the Chinamen's gardens, which lie up the creek, under the rocky point of Gibraltar, about a mile and a half distant from the township. We went through the lead-that is, the course which the gold takes underground, and which can be traced by the old workings. Where the gold lies from five to seven feet beneath the surface, the whole ground is turned over to get at it; but where the goldbearing stratum lies from fifty to two hundred feet deep, and shafts have to be sunk, the remains of the old workings present a very different appearance. Then mounds of white clay and gravel, from twenty to forty feet high, lie close together, sometimes not more than fifteen feet

apart. Climb up to the top of one of these mounds, and you can see down the deserted shaft which formerly led to the working ground below. Look round; see the immense quantity of heaps, and the extent of ground they cover, almost as far as the eye can reach up the lead, and imagine the busy scene which the place must have presented in the earlier days of the rush, when each of these shafts was fitted with its windlass, and each mound was covered with toiling men. In one place a couple of engine-sheds still remain, a gaunt erection supporting the water-tanks; the poppet-heads towering above all, still fitted with the wheels that helped to bring the gold to the surface. How deserted and desolate the place looks! An abandoned rush must be as melancholy a sight to a miner as a deserted city to a townsman. But all is not dead yet. Not far off you can see jets of white steam coming up from behind the high white mounds on the new lead, showing that miners are still actually at work in the neighborhood; nor are they working without hope.

Passing through the abandoned claims, we shortly found ourselves on the brow of the hill overlooking the Chinamen's gardens, of which we had come in search, and, dipping into the valley, we were soon in front of them. They are wonderfully neat and well kept. The oblong beds are raised some ten inches above the level of the walks, and the light and loamy earth is kept in first-rate condition. The Chinamen are far less particular about their huts, which are both poor and frail. Some of them are merely of canvas, propped up by gum-tree branches, to protect them from the wind and weather. But John has more substantial dwellings than these, for

here, I observe, is a neat little cluster of huts, one in the centre being a well-constructed weather-board, with a real four-paned glass window in it.

Crossing the ditch surrounding the gardens upon a tottering plank, and opening the little gate, we went in. The Chinamen were, as usual, busily at work. Some were hoeing the light soil, and others, squatted on their haunches, were weeding. They looked up and wished us "Good evening" as we passed along. Near the creek, which bounded one end of the ground, a John was hauling up water from the well; I took a turn at the windlass, and must confess that I found the work very hard.

The young vegetables are reared with the greatest care, and each plant is sedulously watched and attended to. Here is a John down on his haunches, with a pot of white mixture and a home-manufactured brush, painting over the tender leaves of some young cabbages to save them from blight. He has to go through some hundreds of them in this way. Making our way into one of the larger huts, we stroll into the open door, and ask a more important-looking man if he has any watermelon. We get a splendid one for "fourpin," and have a delicious "gouter." Our host-a little, dry, withered-up fellow, dressed in a soiled blue cotton jacket, and wide trowsers which flap about his ankles-collects the rind for his fowls. The hard-beaten ground is the only floor ing of the hut, and the roof is simply of bark.

In one of the corners of the cabin was a most peculiarlooking affair, very like a Punch and Judy show. On the proscenium, as it were, large Chinese letters were painted. Inside was an image or idol (the joss), carved in wood, with gorgeous gilded paper stuck all round him.

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