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OCEANA.
things, that we let ourselves be flattered, be deluded, &c. Very likely! There was mud as well as gold in the alluvial mines. The manager pointed out the gold to us and left the mud unpointed out. The question was not of the mud at all, but of the quality and quantity of the gold. All things have their seamy aspects. If there is gold, and much of it, that is the chief point. The mud may be taken for granted. But for myself I can relate only what I myself saw, and the impression which it made upon me. Readers may make such deductions as they please.
CHAPTER IX.
Bendigo.— Sandhurst.—Descent into a Gold Mine.— Hospitalities.—Desire for Confederation.—Mount Macedon.—Summer Residence of the Governor.— Sir George Verdon.— St. Hubert's.—Wine growing.—Extreme Heat.—Mr. Castella.—Expedition to Fernshaw.— Gigantic Trees.—A Picnic.—A Forest Fire.—Return to Melbourne.
Ballarat is not the only gold-centre. We all remember to have heard of Bendigo, or the New Rush. Bendigo is now the town of Sandhurst, a thousand feet below Ballarat, a hundred miles from it on the interior watershed where the streams run towards the Murray. To Sandhurst we were next to go. After the Ballarat luncheon the special train received us again. It was a hot afternoon, which grew hotter as we descended. The surface of the country through which we travelled had been scratched and scored by the old diggers ; pits, holes, long trenches, with broken wheels and timberwork, indicating where the departed ant-swarms had been busy. All this is over now; “companies” have taken the mining business everywhere into their own hands, some splendidly successful, some falling to pieces in bankruptcy, and instantly commencing again. It is a gigantic gambling system, which, however, the Colony can afford. The community prospers. Individuals who are down to-day are up to-morrow, and <he loss, when there is loss, is spread over so large an area that it is not seriously felt. Nothing can go seriously wrong when the common labourer’s wages are 8s. a day.
Hot as the weather was, the land did not seem to suffer