The Eureka Stockade | Page 8

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 tips,
and 'toddy' drunk on the sly.
I frequently saw horrid scenes of blood; but I was now an old chum and
therefore knew what was what in colonial life.
I had a Cameleon for a neighbour, who, in the garb of an Irishman,
flung his three half-shovels out of a hole on the hill punctually every
morning, and that was his work before breakfast. Then, a red shirt on
his back, and a red cap on his head, he would, in the subsequent hour,
give evidence of his scorning to be lazy by putting down some three
inches deeper another hole below in the gully. 'Full stop;' he must have
a 'blow,' but the d----d things--his matches--had got damp, and so in a
rage he must hasten to his tent to light the pipe; that is, to put on the
Yankee garb and complete his forenoon work