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Rh a lateral street in the direction of a mine or a crushing-mill. Most of the houses are of wood, and scattered over the hills are the huts of the miners, in order that they may be near the places where they are employed. This does not prevent their coming into the town in the evening, and occasionally making it a very lively place. In the early days there were the usual disorderly scenes of the centre of a 'gold rush;' and one of the old inhabitants told us that a few months after the discovery became known, it seemed as though half the bad characters in Australia had congregated there.

"When the alluvial diggings had been exhausted, the wandering miners disappeared and wended their way to newly reported fields. The place became more orderly, and then the abandoned claims were occupied by the Chinese, the most patient workers the world ever saw.