Excellency's return to the camp, the miners busily employed themselves in laying down slabs to facilitate his progress. I was among the zealous ones who improvised this shabby foot-path. What a lack! we were all of us as cheerful as fighting-cocks.—A crab-hole being in the way, our Big-Larry actually pounced on Lady Hotham, and lifting her up in his arms, eloped with her ladyship safely across, amid hearty peals of laughter, however colonial they may have been.—Now Big Larry kept the crowd from annoying the couple, by properly laying about him with a switch all along the road.

"His Excellency was hailed with three-times-three, and was proclaimed on the
Camp, now invaded by some five hundred blue shirts, the 'Diggers' Charley.'

"His Excellency addressed us miners as follows:-

"Diggers I feel delighted with your reception—I shall not neglect your interests and welfare—again I thank you.

"It was a short but smart speech we had heard elsewhere, he was not fond of 'twaddle,' which I suppose meant 'bosh.' After giving three hearty cheers, old Briton's style to 'Charley,' the crowd dispersed to drink a nobbler to his health and success. I do so this very moment. Eureka, under my snug tent on the hill, August 26, 1854. C.R."

Within six short months, five thousand citizens of Melbourne, receive the name of this applauded ruler with a loud and prolonged outburst of indignation!

Some twenty Ballaarat miners lie in the grave, weltering in their gore! double that number are bleeding from bayonet wounds; thirteen more have the rope round their necks, and two more of their leading men are priced four hundred pounds for their body or carcase.

'Tout cela, n'est pas precisement comme chez nous, pas vrai?'

Please, give me a dozen puffs at my black-stump, and then I will proceed to the next chapter.

Chapter XII.

Sufficit Diei Sua Vexatio.

Either this chapter must be very short, or I had better give it up without starting it at all.

Up to the middle of September, 1854, the search for licences happened once a month; at most twice: perhaps once a week on the Gravel Pits, owing to the near neighbourhood of the Camp. Now, licence-hunting became the order of the day. Twice a week on every line; and the more the diggers felt annoyed at it, the more our Camp officials persisted in goading us, to render our yoke palatable by habit. I assert, as an eye-witness and a sufferer, that both in October and November, when the weather allowed it, the Camp rode out for the hunt every alternate day. True, one day they would hunt their game on Gravel-pits, another day, they pounced on the foxes of the Eureka; and a third day, on the Red-hill: but, though working on different leads, are we not all fellow diggers? Did not several of us meet again in the evening, under the same tent, belonging to the same party? It is useless to ask further questions.

Towards the latter end of October and the beginning of November we had such a set of scoundrels camped among us, in the shape of troopers and traps, that I had better shut up this chapter at once, or else whirl the whole manuscript bang down a shicer.

"Hold hard, though, take your time, old man: don't let your Roman blood hurry you off like the hurricane, and thus damage the merits of your case. Answer this question first," says my good reader.

"If it be a fair one, I will."

"Was, then, the obnoxious mode of collecting the tax the sole cause of discontent: or was the tax itself (two pounds for three months) objected to at the same time?"

"I think the practical miner, who had been hard at work night and day, for the last four or six months, and, after all, had just bottomed a shicer, objected to the tax itself, because he could not possibly afford to pay it. And was it not atrocious to confine this man in the lousy lock-up at the Camp, because he had no luck?"

Allow me, now, in return, to put a very important question, of the old
Roman stamp, 'Cui bono?' that is, Where did our licence money go to?
That's a nut which will be positively cracked by-and-bye.

Chapter XIII.

Ubi Caro, Ibi Vultures.

One morning, I woke all on a sudden.—What's up? A troop of horse galloping exactly towards my tent, and I could hear the tramping of a band of traps. I got out of the stretcher, and hastened out of my tent. All the neighbours, in night-caps and unmentionables, were groping round the tents, to inquire what was the matter. It was not yet day-light. There was a sly-grog seller at the top of the hill; close to his store he had a small tent, crammed with brandy cases and other grog, newly come up from town. There must have been a spy, who had scented such valuable game.

The Commissioner asked the storekeeper, who by this time was at the door of his store: "Whose tent is that?" indicating the small one in question.

"I don't know," was the answer.

"Who lives in it? who owns it? is anybody in?" asked the Commissioner.

"An old man owns it, but he is gone to town on business, and left it to the care of his mate who is on the nightshift," replied the storekeeper.

"I won't peck up that chaff of yours, sir. Halloo! who is in? Open the tent;" shouted the Commissioner.

No answer.

"I say, cut down this tent, and we'll see who is in;" was the order of the Commissioner to two ruffianly looking troopers.

No sooner said than done; and the little tent was ripped up by their swords. A government cart was, of course, ready in the gully below, and in less than five minutes the whole stock of grog, some two hundred pounds sterling worth, or five hundred pounds worth in nobblers, was carted up to the Camp, before the teeth of some hundreds of diggers, who had now collected round about. We cried "Shame! shame!" sulkily enough, but we did not interfere; first, because the store had already annoyed us often enough during the long winter nights; second, because the plunderers were such Vandemonian-looking traps and troopers, that we were not encouraged to say much, because it would have been of no use.

As soon, however, as the sun was up, and all hands were going to work, the occurrence not only increased the discontent that had been brewing fast enough already, but it rose to excitement; and such a state of exasperated feelings, however vented in the shouting of 'Joe,' did certainly not prepare the Eureka boys to submit with patience to a licence-hunt in the course of the day.

First and foremost: it is impossible to prevent the sale of spirits on the diggings; and not any laws, fines, or punishment the government may impose on the dealers or consumers can have an effect towards putting a stop to sly-grog selling. A miner working, as during the past winter, in wet and cold, must and will have his nobbler occasionally; and very necessary, too, I think. No matter what the cost, he will have it; and it cannot be dispensed with, if he wish to preserve his health: he won't go to the Charley Napier Hotel, when he can get his nobbler near-handy, and thereby give a lift to Pat or Scotty.

Secondly: I hereby assert that the breed of spies in this colony prospered by this sly-grog selling. "We want money," says some of the 'paternals' at Toorak.

"Oh! well, then," replies another at Ballaarat, "come down on a few storekeepers and unlicensed miners and raise the wind. We