Chapter 37

MY NEIGHBOURHOOD AND NEIGHBOURS.

"DINING OUT"--DIGGERS' SUNDAY DINNER--THE OLD WORKINGS--THE CHINAMEN'S GARDENS--CHINAMEN'S DWELLINGS--THE CEMETERY--THE HIGH PLAINS--THE BUSH--A RIDE THROUGH THE BUSH--THE SAVOYARD WOODCUTTER--VISIT TO A SQUATTER.

There is no difficulty in making friends in Victoria. New chums from home are always made welcome. They are invited out and hospitably entertained by people of all classes. But for the many kind friends I made in Majorca and its neighbourhood I should doubtless have spent a very dull time there. As it was, the eighteen months I lived up country passed pleasantly and happily.

The very first Sunday I spent in Majorca I "dined out." I had no letters of introduction, and therefore did not owe my dinner to influence, but to mere free-and-easy hospitality. Nor did the party with which I dined belong to the first circles, where letters of introduction are of any use; for they were only a party of diggers. I will explain how it happened.

After church my manager invited me to a short walk in the neighbourhood. We went in the direction of M'Cullum's Creek, about a mile distant. This was the village at the creek which I passed on the evening of my first drive from Maryborough. Crossing the creek, we went up into the range of high ground beyond; and from the top of the hill we had a fine view of the surrounding country. Majorca lay below, glistening amidst its hillocks of pipeclay. The atmosphere was clear, and the sky blue and cloudless. Though the town was two miles distant, I could read some of the names on the large canvas sign-boards over the hotel doors; and with the help of an opera-glass, I easily distinguished the windows of a house six miles off. The day was fine and warm, though it was mid-winter in June; for it must be borne in mind that the seasons are reversed in this southern hemisphere.

Descending the farther side of the hill, we dropped into a gully, where we shortly came upon a little collection of huts roofed with shingle. The residents were outside, some amusing themselves with a cricket-ball, while others were superintending the cooking of their dinners at open fires outside the huts. One of the men having recognized my companion, a conversation took place, which was followed by an invitation to join them at dinner. As we were getting rather peckish after our walk, we readily accepted their offered hospitality. The mates took turn and turn about at the cooking, and when dinner was pronounced to be ready, we went into the hut.

The place was partitioned off into two rooms, one of which was a sleeping apartment, and the other the dining-room. It was papered with a gay-coloured paper, and photographs of friends were stuck up against the wall. We were asked to be seated. To accommodate the strangers, an empty box and a billet of wood were introduced from the outside. I could not say the table was laid, for it was guiltless of a table-cloth; indeed all the appointments were rather rough. When we were seated, one of the mates, who acted as waiter, brought in the smoking dishes from the fire outside, and set them before us. The dinner consisted of roast beef and cauliflower, and a capital dinner it was, for our appetites were keen, and hunger is the best of sauces. We were told that on Sundays the men usually had pudding; but "Bill," who was the cook that week, was pronounced to be "no hand at a plum duff." We contrived, however, to do very well without it.

I afterwards found that the men were very steady fellows--three of them English and one a German. They worked at an adjoining claim; and often afterwards I saw them at our bank, selling their gold, or depositing their savings.

After dinner we had a ramble through the bush with our hosts, and then, towards dusk, we wended our way back to the township. Such was my first experience of diggers' hospitality in Australia, and it was by no means the last.

Another afternoon we made an excursion to the Chinamen's gardens, which lie up the creek, under the rocky point of Gibraltar, about a mile and a half distant from the township. We went through the lead--that is, the course which the gold takes underground, and which can be traced by the old workings. Where the gold lies from five to seven feet beneath the surface, the whole ground is turned over to get at it. But where the gold-bearing stratum lies from fifty to two hundred feet deep, and shafts have to be sunk, the remains of the old workings present a very different appearance. Then mounds of white clay and gravel, from twenty to forty feet high, lie close together--sometimes not more than fifteen feet apart. Climb up to the top of one of these mounds, and you can see down the deserted shaft which formerly led to the working ground below. Look round; see the immense quantity of heaps, and the extent of ground they cover, almost as far as the eye can reach up the lead, and imagine the busy scene which the place must have presented in the earlier days of the rush, when each of these shafts was fitted with its windlass, and each mound was covered with toiling men. In one place a couple of engine-sheds still remain, a gaunt erection supporting the water-tanks; the poppet-heads towering above all, still fitted with the wheels that helped to bring the gold to the surface. How deserted and desolate the place looks! An abandoned rush must be as melancholy a sight to a miner as a deserted city to a townsman. But all is not dead yet. Not far off you can see jets of white steam coming up from behind the high white mounds on the new lead, showing that miners are still actually at work in the neighbourhood; nor are they working without hope.

Passing through the abandoned claims, we shortly found ourselves on the brow of the hill overlooking the Chinamen's gardens, of which we had come in search, and, dipping into the valley, we were soon in front of them. They are wonderfully neat and well kept. The oblong beds are raised some ten inches above the level of the walks, and the light and loamy earth is kept in first-rate condition. The Chinamen are far less particular about their huts, which are both poor and frail. Some of them are merely of canvas, propped up by gum-tree branches, to protect them from the wind and weather. But John has more substantial dwellings than these, for here, I observe, is a neat little cluster of huts, one in the centre being a well-constructed weatherboard, with a real four-paned glass window in it.

Crossing the ditch surrounding the gardens upon a tottering plank, and opening the little gate, we went in. The Chinamen were, as usual, busily at work. Some were hoeing the light soil, and others, squatted on their haunches, were weeding. They looked up and wished us "Good evening" as we passed along. Near the creek, which bounded one end of the ground, a John was hauling up water from the well; I took a turn at the windlass, and must confess that I found the work very hard.

The young vegetables are reared with the greatest care, and each plant is sedulously watched and attended to. Here is a John, down on his haunches, with a pot of white mixture and a home-manufactured brush, painting over the tender leaves of some young cabbages, to save them from blight. He has to go through some hundreds of them in this way. Making our way into one of the larger huts, we stroll into the open door, and ask a more important-looking man if he has any water-melon? We get a splendid one for "four-pin," and have a delicious "_gouter_." Our host--a little, dry, withered-up fellow, dressed in a soiled blue cotton jacket, and wide trowsers which flap about his ankles--collects the rind for his fowls. The hard-beaten ground is the only flooring of the hut, and the roof is simply of bark.

In one of the corners of the cabin was a most peculiar-looking affair, very like a Punch and Judy show. On the proscenium, as it were, large Chinese letters were painted. Inside was an image or idol (the joss), carved in wood, with gorgeous gilded paper stuck all round him. A small crowd of diminutive Chinamen knelt before him, doing homage. On the ledge before the little stage was a glass of _porter_ for the idol to drink, and some rice and fruit to satisfy his appetite. Numerous Chinese candles, like our wax tapers, were put up all round inside, and the show, when lit up, must have looked very curious.

The Chinamen are always pleased at any notice taken of their houses, so we penetrated a little further into the dwelling. In one little room we found a young fellow reading a Chinese book with English words opposite the characters. It seemed a sort of primer or word-book. My friend having asked the Chinaman to give us some music on an instrument hanging above him, which looked something like our banjo, he proceeded to give us some celestial melodies. The tunes were not bad, being in quick time, not unlike an Irish jig, but the chords were most strange. He next played a tune on the Chinese fiddle, very thin and squeaky. The fiddle consists of a long, straight piece of wood, with a cross-piece fixed on to the end of it. Two strings stretch from the tip of the cross-piece to the end of the long piece. The instrument is rested on the knee, and the gut of the bow, which is between the two strings, is drawn first across one and then the other. An invisible vocalist, in the adjoining cabin, gave us a song to the accompaniment of the violin. I should imagine that it was a sentimental song, as it sounded very doleful; it must surely have been the tune that the old cow died of!

We were now in the bedroom, which was a most quaint affair. You must not imagine that the Chinamen sleep on beds at all--at least the Chinamen here do not. A wooden stretcher, covered with fine straw matting, is sufficient for their purpose. The room was lit by a small window; the walls were decorated with a picture or two from the 'Illustrated London News,' placed side by side with Chinese likenesses of charming small-footed ladies, gaudily dressed in blues and yellows.

In another adjoining hut we found a Chinaman whom we knew,--a man who comes to the bank occasionally to sell us gold. He was cooking his supper, squatting over the fire, with an old frying-pan containing something that looked very like dried worms frizzling in fat. "Welly good" he told us it was; and very good he seemed to be making it, as he added slice after slice of cucumber to the mixture. John showed us the little worm-like things before they were put in the pan, and he told us they came "all the way Canton." He offered us, by way of refreshment, his very last drop of liquor from a bottle that was labelled, "Burnett's Fine Old Tom," which he kept, I suppose, for his private consumption. John's mates shortly after came in to their meal, when we retired--I with a cucumber in my pocket, which he gave me as a present, and a very good one it was. I often afterwards went over to see the Chinamen, they were so quaint and funny in their ways.

I observe that in the cemetery the Chinamen have a separate piece of burying-ground apportioned to them. There their bodies are interred; but only to be dug up again, enclosed in boxes, and returned to China for final burial; the prejudice said to prevail amongst them being that if their bones do not rest in China their souls cannot enter Paradise. Not only are they careful that their bodies, but even that bits of their bodies, should be returned to their native land. There was a Chinaman in Majorca whom I knew well, that had his finger taken off by an accident. Shortly after, he left the township; but, three months after, he one day made his appearance at our bank. I asked him where he had been, and why he had come back to Majorca? "Oh!" said he, holding up his hand, "me come look after my finger." "Where is it?" I asked.

"Oh! me put 'em in the ground in bush--me know." And I have no doubt he recovered his member, and went away happy.

My greatest pleasure, while at Majorca, was in riding or walking through the bush--that is, the country as Nature made it and left it--still uncleared and unoccupied, except by occasional flocks of sheep, the property of the neighbouring squatters. North of Majorca lies a fine tract of country which we call the high plains, for we have to cross a creek and climb a high hill before we get on to them. Then for an invigorating gallop over the green turf, the breeze freshening as we pace along. These plains are really wonderful. They look like a large natural amphitheatre, being level for about fifteen miles in every direction and encircled all round by high hills. There is very little timber on the plains.

The bush covers the ranges of hills between Majorca and these plains or lower grounds, amidst which the creeks run. Here, in some places, the trees grow pretty thickly; in others, the country is open and naturally clear. There is, however, always enough timber about to confuse the traveller unless he knows the track.

Shortly after my settling in Majorca, having heard that one of my fellow-passengers by the 'Yorkshire' was staying with a squatter about fourteen miles off, I determined to pay him a visit. I thought I knew the track tolerably well; but on my way through the bush I got confused, and came to the conclusion that I had lost my way. When travellers get lost, they usually "_coo-ee_" at the top of their voice, and the prolonged note, rising at the end, is heard at a great distance in the silence of the bush. I _coo-ied_ as loud as I could, and listened; but there was no response. I rode on again, and at length I thought I heard a sort of hammering noise in the distance. I proceeded towards it, and found the noise occasioned by a man chopping wood. Glad to find I was not yet lost, I went up to him to ask my way. To my surprise, he could not speak a word of English. I tried him in German, I tried him in French. No! What was he, then? I found, by his _patois_, a few words of which I contrived to make out, that he was a Savoyard, who had only very recently arrived in the colony. By dint of signs, as much as words, I eventually made out the direction in which I was to go in order again to find the track that I had missed, and I took leave of my Savoyard with thanks.

I succeeded in recovering the track, and eventually reached the squatter's house in which my friend resided. It was a large stone building, erected in the modern style of villa architecture. Beside it stood the original squatter's dwelling. What a contrast they presented! The one a tall, handsome house; the other a little, one-storied, shingle-roofed hut, with queer little doors and windows. My friend, as he came out and welcomed me, asked me to guess what he had been just doing. He had been helping to put in the new stove in the kitchen, for the larger house is scarcely yet finished. He told me what a good time he was having: horses to ride, doing whatever he liked, and enjoying a perfect Liberty Hall.

The host himself shortly made his appearance, and gave me a cordial welcome. After dinner we walked round and took a view of the place. Quite a little community, I found, lived about; for our host is a large squatter, farmer, and miller; all the people being supplied with rations from the station store. There is even a station church provided by the owner, and a clergyman comes over from Maryborough every Sunday afternoon to hold the service and preach to the people. After a very pleasant stroll along the banks of the pretty creek which runs near the house, I mounted my nag, and rode slowly home in the cool of the evening.