what a pack of ragamuffins over that way! I got acquainted with the German party who found out the Tarrangower den; shaped my hole like a bathing tub, and dropped "on it" right smart. Paid two pounds to cart one load down the Loddon, and left two more loads of washing stuff, snug and wet with the sweat of my brow over the hole. Got twenty-eight pennyweights out of the load. Went back the third day, brisk and healthy, to cart down the other two loads. Washing stuff! gone: hole! gone: the gully itself! gone: the whole face of it had been clean shaved. Never mind, go ahead again. Got another claim on the surface-hill. No search for licence: thank God, had none. Nasty, sneaky, cheeky little things of flies got into my eyes: could see no more, no ways. Mud water one shilling a bucket! Got the dysentery; very bad. Thought, one night, to reef the yards and drop the anchor. Got on a better tack though. Promenaded up to the famous Bendigo. Had no particular objection to Celestials there, but had no particular taste for their tartaric water. Made up my mind to remember my days of innocence, and turned shepherd. Fine landscape this run on the Loddon: almost a match for Bella Italia, but there are too many mosquitoes. Dreamt, one day, I was drinking a tumbler of Loddon wine; and asserted that Providence was the same also in the south. It was a dream. The lands lay waste and desolate: not by nature; oh no; by hand of man. Bathing in these Loddon water-holes, superb. Tea out of this Loddon water magnificent. In spite of these horrible hot winds, this water is always fresh and delicious: how kind is Providence! One night lost the whole blessed lot of my flock. Myself, the shepherd, did not know, in the name of heavens, which way to turn. Got among the blacks, the whole Tarrang tribe in corrobory. Lord, what a rum sight for an old European traveller. Found natives very humane, though. My sheep right again, only the wild dogs had given them a good shake. Was satisfied that the Messiah the Jews are looking for will not be born in this bullock-drivers' land; any how, the angels won't announce the happy event of his birth to the shepherds. No more truck with sheep, and went to live with the blacks for a variation. Picked up, pretty soon, bits of their yabber-yabber. For a couple of years had tasted no fish; now I pounced on a couple of frogs, every couple of minutes. Thought their 'lubras' ugly enough; not so, however, the slender arms and small hands of their young girls, though the fingers be rather too long.

That will do now, in as much as the end of the story is this: That portion in my brains called "acquisitiveness" got the gold-fever again, and I started for old Ballaarat.

Chapter VI.

Sua Cuique Voluntas.

I was really delighted to see the old spot once more; Easter, 1854. I do not mean any offence to my fellow-diggers elsewhere; it struck me very forcibly, however, that our Ballaarat men look by far more decent, and our storekeepers, or grog-sellers if you like, undoubtedly more respectable.

Of a constitution not necessarily savage, I did not fail to observe that the fair ones had ventured now on a large scale to trust their virtue among us vagabonds, and on a hot-wind day, I patronized of course some refreshment room.

I met my old mate, and we determined to try the old game; but this time on the old principle of 'labor omnia vincit'—I pitched my tent right in the bush, and prophesied, that from my door I would see the golden hole in the gully below.

I spoke the truth, and such is the case this very day. Feast of the Assumption, 1855:—What sad events, however, were destined to pass exactly before the very door of my tent! Who could have told me on that Easter Sunday, that the unknown hill which I had chosen for my rest, would soon be called the Massacre Hill! That next Christmas, my mate would lie in the grave, somewhere forgotten: and I in the gaol! the rope round my neck!!

Let us keep in good spirits, good reader, we shall soon have to weep together enough.

Gravel Pits, famous for its strong muster of golden holes, and blasting shicers, was too deep for me. The old Eureka was itself again. The jewellers shops, which threatened to exhaust themselves in Canadian Gully, were again the talk of the day: and the Eureka gold dust was finer, purer, brighter, immensely darling. The unfaithful truants who had rushed to Bryant's Ranges, to knock their heads against blocks of granite, now hastened for the third time to the old spot, Ballaarat, determined to stick to it for life or death. English, German, and Scotch diggers, worked generally on the Gravel Pits, the Irish had their stronghold on the Eureka. The Americans fraternised with all the wide-awake, 'ubi caro ibi vultures.'

Here begins as a profession the precious game of 'shepherding,' or keeping claims in reserve; that is the digger turning squatter. And, as this happened under the reign of a gracious gold commissioner, so I am brought to speak of the gold licence again. First I will place the man before my reader, though.

Get a tolerable young pig, make it stand on his hind legs, put on its head a cap trimmed with gold-lace, whitewash its snout, and there you have the ass in the form of a pig; I mean to say a "man," with this privilege, that he possesses in his head the brains of both the above-mentioned brutes.

Chapter VII.

Ludi Ballaaratenses.

Eureka was advancing fast to glory. Each day, and not seldom twice a day, the gutter gammoned and humbugged all us 'vagabonds' so deucedly, that the rush to secure a claim "dead on it" rose to the standard of 'Eureka style,' that is, 'Ring, ring,' was the yell from some hundred human dogs, and soon hill and flat poured out all spare hands to thicken the "ring."

By this time, two covies—one of them generally an Irishman had stripped to their middle, and were "shaping" for a round or two. A broken nose, with the desired accomplishment of a pair of black eyes, and in all cases, when manageable, a good smash in the regions either of the teeth, or of the ribs—both, if possible, preferred—was supposed to improve the transaction so much, that, what with the tooth dropping, or the rib cracking, or both, as aforesaid, it was considered 'settled.' Thus originated the special title of 'rowdy mob,' or Tipperary, in reference to the Irish. Let us have the title clear.

The 'shepherding,' that is the squatting by one man women and children had not got hold of this 'Dolce far niente' yet—the ground allotted by law to four men; and the astuteness of our primitive shepherds having found it cheap and profitable to have each claim visibly separated from the other by some twenty-feet wall, which was mutually agreed upon by themselves alone, to call it 'spare ground,' was now a grown-up institution. Hence, whenever the gutter, 120 feet below, took it into its head to bestir and hook it, the faithful shepherds would not rest until they were sure to snore in peace a foot and a half under ground from the surface, and six score feet from 'bang on the gutter.'

This Ballaarat dodge would have been innocent enough, were it not for 'Young Ireland,' who, having fixed headquarters on the Eureka, was therefore accused of monopolising the concern. Now, suppose Paddy wanted to relish a 'tip,' that is, a drop of gin on the sly, then Scotty, who had just gulped down his 'toddy,' which was a drop of auld whisky, would take upon himself the selfish trouble to sink six inches more in Paddy's hole, which feat was called 'jumping;' and thus, broken noses, and other accomplishments, as aforesaid, grew in proportion to