Page:Banking Under Difficulties- Or Life On The Goldfields Of Victoria, New South Wales And New Zealand (1888).pdf/55

46 the beaches of the west coast of New Zealand (to which I shall refer by-and-bye) than anything I have seen. The finding of this deposit induced us and several others to virtually re-work our claims, and from several very good results were obtained.

My mates and I lived in a tent adjoining the one occupied by my father. We took turns week-about to cook. The one whose turn it was would rise about half-an-hour before the others, light the fire and prepare breakfast; breakfast over, all hands would go to work. Half-an-hour before dinner-time the cook would go home to light the fire and cook the chops or steaks. We made our own bread, which we baked in a camp oven. Sunday was the only day we had a really good meal; then we would have roast beef and plum pudding. After the day’s work the cook prepared tea, after which we would read, yarn, or visit some of our neighbours. I had two years of this life, and a jolly one I found it; free and independent, your own master, work when you liked and knock off when you liked. But a change has come o’er the spirit of the dream; digging now-a-days is hard work. I know many men at this present moment who are working hard from Monday morning till Saturday night, and scarcely getting enough to keep body and soul together. There were lots of gentlemen diggers in the “good old days”; in fact it was hard for those in business to get a man at any price, for no sooner did people land in Melbourne than they were off to the diggings.

In concluding the portion of this work relating to Victoria, it may be proper to state that the writer, having completed his probation at the diggings, cast about for some occupation more congenial to his tastes, when he had the good fortune to get employment in the Bank of New South Wales, and although most of his experiences have been connected with New South Wales and New Zealand, yet there are a few reminiscences of the days when he was a junior in Castlemaine that may prove interesting:—

One day two men came in and asked what price we were giving for gold. I told them. “What will you give for a lump like this?” said one of them, at the same time throwing his coat down on the counter, in which he had a nugget, in shape something like a leg of mutton, weighing 600 ozs. (50 lbs. weight). They were not satisfied with the price offered, so deposited it in the treasury for transmission to Melbourne, where it was exhibited for a time and eventually sold. In course of conversation the men told me the nugget was discovered by them at Fryer’s Creek that morning. There were four of them in the party, and very hard up. They were working in old ground and fossicking in a pillar, when one of them saw a speck of gold; he tried to pick it out with his finger and thumb, but could not manage it, so he tried it with his fossicking