Chapter 4

He had it all his own way now; he was fairly off with me; and all I could do was to bear his head as well up as I could, to prevent him from stumbling. However, as it would have been bad policy to let him know how much he was master, I gave him an occasional touch with the spur, as if wishing him to accelerate his pace; and when he made an extra bound, I patted him on the neck, as if pleased with his performance.

A watery cloud was passing over the face of the moon, which rendered everything dim and indistinct, as we tore away down a grassy slope; the view terminating in a grove of tall trees, situated upon a rising-ground. Beyond the dark outline of the trees, I saw nothing.

As we neared the grove, Satan slackened his speed; this I thought he did with a view to crush me against the trunks of the trees. To prevent him from having time to do this, I struck him with the spurs, and away again he went like fury. As he burst through the trees, I flung my head forward upon his neck, to prevent myself from being swept off by the lower branches. In doing this, the spurs accidentally came in contact with his sides. He gave one tremendous leap forward--the ground sank under his feet--the horse was thrown over his own head--I was jerked into the air--and, amid an avalanche of earth and stones, we were hurled down a perpendicular bank into the brown, swollen waters of the Clyde.

Owing to a bend in the river, the force of the current was directed against this particular spot, and had undermined it; and although strong enough to bear a man or a horse, under ordinary circumstances, yet down at once it thundered under the desperate leap of Satan. However, it did not signify, as nothing could have prevented us from surging into the water at the next bound.

A large quantity of rain had fallen in the upper part of the shire; and, in consequence, the river was full from bank to brae. I was nearly a stranger to the place; indeed, so much so, that I had supposed we were running from the river. This, combined with the suddenness of the shock, and the appearance of a turbid, rapid river--sweeping down trees, brushwood, branches, hay, corn, and straw before it, with resistless force--was so foreign to my idea of the calm, peaceful Clyde, that when I rose to the surface, I was quite bewildered, and had very serious doubts as to my own identity.

I was roused from this state of bewilderment by the snorting and splashing of the horse: he was making a bold attempt to scale the perpendicular bank. Had I been thrown into the body of the stream, I should have been swept away, and the animal must have perished; but in all heavy rapid runs of water, salt or fresh, there is what is termed an eddy stream, running close inshore, in a contrary direction to the main body of the water. I have seen Highlanders in their boats catching fish in the eddy stream of the Gulf of Corrievrekin, within a short distance of the main tide, which, had it but got the slightest hold on their boat, would have swept them with fearful velocity into the jaws of the roaring gulf. I was caught by this eddy, which kept me stationary, and enabled me, by a few strokes, to reach the horse's side. To cross the river, or to land here, was alike impossible; so I took the reins in my right hand, wheeled the horse from the bank, and dashed at once with him into the strength of the current. Away we went, Satan and I, in capital spirits both; not a doubt of our effecting a safe landing ever crossing my mind. And the horse evinced his certainty upon that subject, by snatching a bite out of a heap of hay that floated at his side, and eating it as composedly as if he had been in the stable.

We soon swept round the high bank that had caused our misfortune, and came to a level part of the country, which was flooded far up into the fields. I then struck strongly out in a slanting direction for the shore, and soon had the satisfaction of finding myself once more upon the green turf. Satan shook himself, pricked up his ears, and gave a low neigh. I then stroked him, and spoke kindly to him. He returned the caress by licking my hand. Poor fellow! he had contracted a friendship for me in the water--a friendship which terminated only with his life; and which was rendered the more valuable, by his never extending it to another living thing.

THE GOLD-FEVER IN AUSTRALIA.

The discovery of gold in the new continent has thrown the country into a state which well merits examination. The same circumstance in California was no interruption to progress of any kind. It merely peopled a desert, and opened a trade where there was none before; while in Australia it finds an established form of civilisation, and a commerce flowing in recognised channels. It is an interesting task, therefore, to trace the nature of the influence exercised in the latter country over old pursuits by the new direction of industry; and it is with some curiosity we open a mercantile circular, dated Sydney, 1st November 1851. This, we admit, is a somewhat forbidding document to mere literary readers; but we shall divest its contents of their technical form, and endeavour, by their aid, to arrive at some general idea of the real state and prospects of the colony.

Up to the middle of last May, the colonial heart beat high with hope. Trade was good; the pastoral interests were flourishing; the country properties, as a matter of course, were improving; and the introduction of the alpaca, the extended culture of the vine, and the growth of cotton, appeared to present new and rich sources of wealth. At that moment came the discovery of the Gold Fields; and a shock was communicated to the whole industrial system, which to some people seemed to threaten almost annihilation. The idea was, that gold-digging would swallow up all other pursuits, and the flocks perish in the wilderness from the want of shepherds. Nor was this altogether without foundation; for the stockholders have actually been considerable sufferers: all the industrial projects mentioned have been stopped short; and the gold-diggings still continue to attract to themselves, as if by a spell, the labour of the country. The panic, however, has now subsided. It is seen that the result is not so bad as was anticipated, and hopes are entertained that the evil will go no further. A stream of population, it is thought, will be directed to Australia from abroad, and the labour not demanded by gold may suffice for other pursuits. Up to the date of the circular, the value of gold shipped for England from New South Wales had been L. 217,000, and it was supposed that about L. 130,000 more remained at Sydney and in the hands of the miners: 10,000 persons were actually engaged in mining, and 5000 more concerned otherwise in the business; and as the result of the exertions of that multitude, the amount of gold fixed arbitrarily for exportation during the next twelve months, is L. 2,000,000.

But, on the other hand, in the Sydney district alone, the trade in wool has already fallen off to the extent of several thousand bales--a deficiency, however, not as yet attributed to the diminished number of the sheep. It is supposed that the high rates of labour will operate chiefly in disinclining the farmers to extend their operations; and if this at the same time affords them leisure and motive to attend better to the state of their clips, it will ultimately have an effect rather beneficial than otherwise. Australian wool has hitherto been attainable by foreigners only in the English market; but it is a favourable symptom that two cargoes left Sydney last year direct for Hamburg. To shew the falling off in trade during the gold year, it may be mentioned that the exports of wool in the two previous years were about 52,000 bales; and in 1850-1, about 48,000. There was likewise a deficiency of about 6000 casks of tallow, and 3000 hides.

It is interesting to notice, that preserved meats are sent from New South Wales to the neighbouring colonies and to England in considerable quantities. Timber for shipbuilding is rising in estimation in the English market. Australian wines are said to be fully equal to Rhenish; and a Vineyard Association has been formed for the purpose of improvement. Wool, however, is at present the great staple; and the Circular seems to derive some consolation from the idea, that if the crop should continue deficient, prices in England will probably be maintained. 'To anticipate the future prices for our staples,' it says, 'in a market open to so many influences as that of Great Britain, is almost impossible; but it may be well to point out the causes which are likely to affect their value--we allude more especially to wool. We have stated that the production thereof, in New South Wales, is likely to be checked by the attraction of the gold-diggings; and still further, by the gradual abandonment of indifferent or limited runs, which formerly supported a large number of sheep, but which will not pay to work at present prices of wool and labour. Therefore, if we bear in mind that Australia has furnished half of the entire quantity of the wools imported into Great Britain, and that the English buyers have hitherto been purchasing in anticipation of a large annual increase from hence, which for the present, at anyrate, will not be forthcoming, we think we need be under no apprehension of lower prices than the present.'

It will be remarked, that this somewhat unfavourable report is made at the end of the first six months of the gold-fever. That kind of gold-seeking, however, which unsettles the habits of a population, and represses the other pursuits of industry, is not likely to endure very long in any country. It must give way in time to scientific mining, which is as legitimate a business as any other, and which, by the wealth it circulates, will tempt men into new avenues of industry, and recruit, to any extent that may be desirable, the supply of labour. Hitherto that supply has come in inadequate quantities, or from polluted sources; but we have now precisely what the colony wanted--a stream of voluntary emigration, which, in the process of time, when skilled labour only can be employed, will flood the diggings, and its superfluous portions find their level in the other employments afforded by the country. That this will take place without the inconvenience of a transition period, is not to be expected; but, upon the whole, we look upon the present depression of the legitimate trade of the colony as merely a temporary evil, arising out of circumstances that are destined to work well for its eventual prosperity.

The same process, it should be observed, has already been gone through in California. The lawless adventurers who rushed to the gold-fields from all parts of the world subsided gradually into order from mere motives of self-preservation; and as the precious metal disappeared from the surface, multitudes were driven by necessity or policy into employments more remunerative than digging. The large mining population--the producers of gold--became the consumers of goods; markets of all kinds were opened for their supply; emporia of trade rose along the coast; and a country that so recently was almost a desert, now promises to become one of the great marts of the commerce of the world. If this has been the case in California, the process will be much easier in Australia, where the rudiments of various businesses already exist, and where the staple articles of produce are such as can hardly be pushed to a superfluous extent.

The true calamity, however, under which the fixed colonists, the producers of the staples, suppose themselves to suffer, is the change occasioned in the price of labour by the golden prospects of the diggings. On this question there is always considered to be two antagonistical interests--that of the employers, and that of the employed; the former contending for the minimum, and the latter for the maximum rate. But this is a fallacy. The interest of the two is identical; and for these obvious reasons, that if wages be too high, the capitalist must cease to produce and to employ; and if too low, the working population must sink to the position of unskilled labourers at home, and eventually bring about that very state of society from which emigration is sought as an escape. In supposing their interests to be antagonistical, the one party reasons as badly as the other; but, somehow, there always attaches to the bad reasoning of the employed a stigma of criminality, from which that of the other is free. This is unjust enough in England, but in Australia it is ridiculous. A capitalist goes out, provided with a sum so small as to be altogether useless at home as a means of permanent support, but which, in the colony, he expects, with proper management, to place him for the rest of his life in a position of almost fabulous prosperity. These cheering views, however, he confines to his own class. The measure of his happiness will not be full unless he can find cheap labour, as well as magnificent returns. For this desideratum he will make any sacrifice. He will take your paupers, your felons--your rattlesnakes; anything in the shape of a drudge, who will toil for mere subsistence, and without one of the social compensations which render toil in England almost endurable.

We are never sorry to hear of the high price of labour in countries where the employers live in ease and independence; and we join heartily in the counsel to the higher class of working-men in this country given by Mr Burton in his _Emigrants Manual_--'never to confound a large labour-market with good sources of employment.' It does not appear to us to be one of the least of the benefits that will accrue after convalescence from the gold-fever in Australia, the higher value the employed will set upon their labour. We cannot reason from the English standard, which has not been deliberately fixed, but forced upon us by competition, excessive population, public burdens, and the necessities of social position. In a new country, however, where all these circumstances are absent, and whither employers and employed resort alike for the purpose of bettering their condition, we should like to see traditions cast aside, and the fabric of society erected on a new basis.

BURGOMASTER LAW IN PRUSSIA.

On turning out, and then turning over, a mass of old papers which had lain packed up in a heavy mail-trunk for a period of more than forty years, I came the other day upon a little bundle of documents in legal German manuscript, the sight of which set me, old as I am, a laughing involuntarily, and brought back in full force to my memory the circumstances which I am about briefly to relate. A strange thing is this memory, by the way, and strangely moved by trifles to the exercise of its marvellous power. For more than thirty years--for the average period that suffices to change the generation of man upon earth--had this preposterous adventure, and everything connected with it, lain dormant in some sealed-up cavity of my brain, when the bare sight of the little bundle of small-sized German foolscap, with its ragged edges and blotted official pages, has set the whole paltry drama, with all its dignified performers, in motion before the retina of my mind's eye with all the reality of the actual occurrence.

It was in the spring or early summer of the year 1806, that, in the capacity of companion and interpreter to a young nobleman who was making the tour of Germany, I was travelling on the high-road from Magdeburg to Berlin. We rolled along in a stout English carriage drawn by German post-horses, and having left Magdeburg after an early breakfast, stopped at a small neat town, some eighteen or twenty miles on our route--my patron intending to remain there for an hour or two, in the hope of being rejoined by a friend who had promised to overtake us. He ordered refreshment, and sat down and partook of it, while I, not choosing to participate, seated myself in the recess of an old-fashioned window, and kept my eyes fixed upon our travelling-carriage, from which the wearied horses had been removed, and which stood but a few paces from where I sat. At the end of an hour, my patron having satisfied his appetite, declined to wait any longer, and proposed that we should proceed on our journey. It was my office to discharge all accounts, and of course to check any attempt at peculation which might be made. I summoned the innkeeper, whose just demand was soon paid, and ordered the horses to be put to. This was done in a few minutes, and the stable-man, as we walked out to the carriage, came forward and presented his little bill. As I ran it hastily over before paying it, I saw that the rascal had charged for services which he had not rendered. With the design of making the most of a chance-customer, he had put down in his account a charge for greasing the wheels of the carriage. Now, as I had never taken my eyes from the carriage during the whole period of our stay, I could not be deceived in the conviction that this was a fraud. True, it was the merest trifle in the world; but the fellow who wanted to exact it was the model of an ugly, impudent, and barefaced rogue, and therefore I resolved not to pay him. Throwing him the money, minus the attempted imposition, I told him to consider himself fortunate that he had got that, which was more than such a rogue-_schurke_ was the word I used--deserved.

'Do you call me a rogue?' said he.

'Certainly; a rogue is your right name,' I replied, and sprang into the carriage.

'Ho! ho!' said he; 'that is against the law. Hans Felder,' he bawled to the postilion, 'I charge you not to move; the horses may be led back to the stable: the gracious gentleman has called me a rogue. Stiefel, run for the police: the gracious gentleman says I am a rogue. I will cite him before the council.'

It was in vain that I put my head out of the window, and bawled to the postilion to proceed. He was evidently afraid to move. In a few minutes a crowd began to collect around us, and in less than a quarter of an hour half the inhabitants of the place had assembled in front of the inn. The noise of a perfect Babel succeeded in an instant to the dull silence of the quiet town. I soon gathered from the vehement disputes that arose on all sides, that the populace were about equally divided into two parties. The more reasonable portion were for allowing us to proceed on our journey, and this would perhaps have been permitted, had not my companion, on understanding what was the matter, burst into an uncontrollable fit of laughter, and repeated the offensive word, accompanying it with a declaration in French, which many of the bystanders understood, that he considered it generally applicable. The landlord of the inn now came forth, and after a not very energetic attempt to conciliate the ostler, who refused to forego his determination to obtain legal redress, invited us to alight and resume our quarters in the inn. This we were compelled to do, to escape the annoyance of the crowd; and the carriage being housed under a shed, the horses returned to the stable. We had not been three minutes in the inn before the police appeared to take me into custody, and march me off to durance vile. By this time I began to see that the charge, and the dilemma into which it had led us, was no joke. I might perhaps have bribed the scoundrel who preferred it, and have sent away the police with a gratuity; but I felt as little disposed to do that as to go to prison. I refused to leave the inn, protested against the jurisdiction of their absurd laws over strangers, and at length, with the assistance of my companion, and a good deal of threatening talk, succeeded in ejecting the two police functionaries from the room. They kept watch, however, at the door, and planted sentinels at the windows, to prevent an ignominious flight that way.

In the meanwhile, the whole town was in commotion, and everybody was hurrying towards the _rathhaus_, or town-hall, where it was plain enough that preparations were making for putting me immediately upon my trial. I saw the old _burgermeister_ go waddling by in his robe of office, accompanied by a crowd of nondescript officials, with one of whom my villainous-looking adversary was in close confabulation. In a short space of time, a band of very scurvy-looking police, plainly vamped up for the occasion, made its appearance; and one of the band entering the room without ceremony, presented me with a summons, couched in legal diction, citing me to appear instantly before the commission then sitting, to answer an indictment preferred against me by Karl Gurtler, Supernumerary Deputy Road Inspector of the district, whose honourable character I had unjustly and wantonly assailed and deteriorated by the application of the scandalous and defamatory term, schurke. There was nothing for it but to obey the mandate; and accordingly, requesting the bearer to convey my compliments to the assembled council, and to say that I would have the honour of attending them in a few minutes, I dismissed him, evidently soothed with my courteous reception. I did this with a view of getting rid of the _posse comitatus_, in whose company I did not much relish the idea of being escorted as a prisoner. My politeness, however, had not the anticipated effect, as, upon emerging from the inn, we found the whole squad waiting at the door as a sort of body-guard, to make sure of our attendance.