Visit to Ballarat—The Journey by Coach—Ballarat founded on Gold—Description of the Town—Ballarat "Corner"—The Speculative Cobbler—Fire Brigades—Return Journey—Crab-holes—The Talbot Ball—The Talbot FÊte—The Avoca Races—Sunrise in the Bush.

One of the most interesting visits to places that I made while staying at Majorca was to Ballarat, the mining capital of the colony, sometimes called here the Victorian Manchester. The time of my visit was not the most propitious, for it was shortly after a heavy fall of rain, which had left the roads in a very bad state. But I will describe my journey.

Three of us hired a one-horse buggy to take us on to Clunes, which lay in our way. The load was rather too much for the horse, but we took turn and turn about at walking, and made it as light for the animal as possible. At Clunes I parted with my companions, who determined to take the buggy on to Ballarat. I thought it preferable to wait for the afternoon coach; and after being hospitably entertained at dinner by the manager of our Branch Bank at Clunes, I took my place in the coach for Ballarat.

We had not gone more than about a mile when the metalled road ended, and the Slough of Despond began,—the road so called, though it was little more than a deep mud-track, winding up a steepish ascent. All the passengers got out and walked up the hill. In the distance we saw a buggy in difficulties. I had already apprehended the fate of my mates who had gone on before me, and avoided sharing it by taking my place in the coach. But we were in little better straits ourselves. When we got up to the buggy, we found it fairly stuck in the mud, in one of the worst parts of the road, with a trace broken. I got under the rails of the paddock in which the coach passengers were walking—for it was impossible to walk in the road—and crossed over to where my former mates were stuck. They were out in the deep mud, almost knee-deep, trying to mend the broken trace. Altogether they looked in a very sorry plight.

At the top of the hill we again mounted the coach, and got on very well for about three miles, until we came to another very bad piece of road. Here we diverged from it altogether, and proceeded into an adjoining field, so as to drive alongside the road, and join it a little further on. The ground looked to me very soft, and so it was. For we had not gone far when the coach gave a plunge, and the wheels sank axle-deep in a crab-hole. All hands had now to set to work to help the coach out of the mud; while the driver urged his horses with cries and cracks of his long whip. But it was of no use. The two wheelers were fairly exhausted, and their struggling only sent them deeper into the mud. The horses were then unharnessed, and the three strongest were yoked in a line, so as to give the foremost of them a better foot-hold. But it was still of no use. It was not until the mud round the wheels had been all dug out, and the passengers lifted the hind wheels and the coach bodily up, that the horses were at last able to extricate the vehicle. By this time we were all in a sad state of dirt and wet, for the rain had begun to fall quite steadily.

Shortly after, we reached the half-way house and changed horses. We now rattled along at a pretty good pace. But every now and then the driver would shout, "Look out inside!" and there would be a sudden roll, followed by a jerk and pitch combined, and you would be thrown over upon your opposite neighbour, or he upon you. At last, after a rather uncomfortable journey, we reached the outskirts of a large town, and in a few minutes more we found ourselves safely jolted into Ballarat.

I am not at all up in the statistics of the colony, and cannot tell the population or the number of inhabited houses in Ballarat.[13] But it is an immense place, second in importance in the colony only to Melbourne. Big though it be, like most of these up-country towns, Ballarat originated in a rush. It was only in September, 1851, that a blacksmith at Buningong, named Hiscocks, who had long been searching for gold, traced a mountain-torrent back into the hills towards the north, and came upon the rich lode which soon became known as the "Ballarat Diggings." When the rumour of the discovery got abroad, there was a great rush of people to the place, accompanied by the usual disorders; but they gradually settled down, and Ballarat was founded. The whole soil of the place was found to contain more or less gold. It was gathered in the ranges, on the flats, in the water-courses, and especially in the small veins of blue clay, lying almost above the so-called "pipeclay." The gold was to all appearance quite pure, and was found in rolled or water-course irregular lumps of various sizes, from a quarter or half an ounce in weight, sometimes incorporated with round pebbles of quartz, which appeared to have formed the original matrix.

The digging was at first for the most part alluvial, but when skilled miners arrived from England, operations were begun on a much larger scale, until now it is conducted upon a regular system, by means of costly machinery and highly-organised labour. To give an idea of the extensive character of the operations, I may mention that one company, the Band of Hope, has erected machinery of the value of 70,000l. The main shaft, from which the various workings branch out, is 420 feet deep; and 350 men are employed in and about the mine. It may also be mentioned that the deeper the workings have gone, the richer has been the yield of gold. This one company has, in a comparatively short time, raised gold worth over half a million sterling; the quantity produced by the Ballarat mines, since the discovery of gold in September, 1851, to the end of 1866, having been worth about one hundred and thirty millions sterling.

The morning after my arrival in Ballarat I proceeded to survey the town, I was certainly surprised at the fine streets, the large buildings, and the number of people walking along the broad pathways. Perhaps my surprise was magnified by the circumstance that nearly fifteen months had passed since I had been in a large town; and, after Majorca, Ballarat seemed to me like a capital. After wandering about the streets for half an hour, I looked into the Court-house, where an uninteresting case of drunkenness was being heard. I next went into the adjoining large building, which I found to be the Public Library. The commodious reading-room was amply supplied with books, magazines, and newspapers; and here I amused myself for an hour in reading a new book. Over the mantel-piece of the large room hangs an oil painting of Prince Alfred, representing him and his "mates" after the visit they had made to one of the Ballarat mines. This provision of excellent reading-rooms—free and open to all—seems to me an admirable feature of the Victorian towns. They are the best sort of supplement to the common day-schools; and furnish a salutary refuge for all sober-minded men, from the temptations of the grog-shops. But besides the Public Library, there is also the Mechanics' Institute, in Sturt Street; a fine building, provided also with a large library, and all the latest English newspapers, free to strangers.

The features of the town that most struck me in the course of the day were these. First, Sturt Street: a fine, broad street, at least three chains wide. On each side are large handsome shops, and along the middle of the road runs a broad strip of garden, with large trees and well-kept beds of flowers. Sturt Street is on an incline; and at the top of it runs Ledyard Street, at right angles, also a fine broad street. It contains the principal banks, of which I counted nine, all handsome stone buildings, the London Chartered, built on a foundation of blue-stone, being perhaps the finest of them in an architectural point of view. Close to it is the famous "Corner." What the Bourse is in Paris, Wall Street in New York, and the Exchange in London—that is the "Corner" at Ballarat. Under the verandah of the Unicorn Hotel, and close to the Exchange Buildings, there is a continual swarm of speculators, managers of companies, and mining men, standing about in groups, very like so many circles of betting-men on a race-course. Here all the mining swindles originate. Specimens of gold-bearing quartz are shown, shares are bought and sold, new schemes are ventilated, and old ones revived. Many fortunes have been lost and won on that bit of pavement.

One man is reckoned as good as another in Ballarat. Even the cad of a baker's boy has the chance of making "a pile," while the swell broker, who dabbles in mines and reefs, may be beggared in a few days. As one of the many instances of men growing suddenly rich by speculation here, I may mention the following. A short time since, a cobbler at Ballarat had a present made to him of twenty scrip in a company that was looking so bad that the shares had become unsaleable. The cobbler knew nothing of the mine, but he held the scrip. Not only so, but he bought more at a shilling or two apiece, and he went on accumulating them, until at the end of the year he had scraped together some two or three hundred. At length he heard that gold had been struck. He went to a bank, deposited his scrip certificates, and raised upon them all the money he could borrow. He bought more shares. They trebled in value. He held on. They trebled again. At last, when the gold was being got almost by the bucket, and a great mania for the shares had set in, the cobbler sold out at 250l. a share, and found himself a rich man. The mine was, I think, the Sir William Don, one of the most successful in Ballarat, now yielding a dividend of about 2l. per share per month, or a return of about 500 per cent. on the paid-up capital.

But to return to my description of Ballarat. The town lies in a valley between two slopes, spreading up on both sides and over the summits. Each summit is surmounted by a lofty tower, built by the Eastern and Western Fire Brigades. These towers command a view of the whole place, and are continually occupied by watchmen, who immediately give the alarm on the outbreak of fire. The people here say that the Ballarat Fire Brigade is the smartest in the southern hemisphere; though the engines are all manned by volunteers. And a fire must be a serious matter in Ballarat, where so many of the buildings—stores as well as dwellings—are built entirely of wood. Many of the streets are even paved with wood.

In the afternoon I ascended the western hill, from which I obtained a fine bird's-eye view of the town. The large, broad streets, at right angles to each other, looked well laid out, neat, and clean looking. What seemed strangest of all was the lazy puffing of the engines over the claims, throwing out their white jets of steam. But for the width of the streets, and the cleanness of the place, one might almost have taken Ballarat for a manufacturing town in Yorkshire, though they have no flower gardens along the middle of their streets!

In the evening I went to the opera—for Ballarat has an opera! The piece was 'Faust,' and was performed by Lyster and Smith's company from Melbourne. The performers did their best, but I cannot say they are very strong in opera yet at the Antipodes.

After thoroughly doing Ballarat, I set out on my return to Majorca. There was the same jolting as before, but this time the coach did not stick in the mud. On reaching Clunes, I resolved to walk straight to Majorca across the plain, instead of going the roundabout way by the road. But the straightest route is not always the shortest, as my experience on this occasion proved. I had scarcely got fairly into the plain before I found myself in the midst of a succession of crab-holes. These are irregular depressions, about a yard or so apart, formed by the washing up of the soil by eddies during floods, and now the holes were all full of water. It was a difficult and tedious process to work one's way through amongst them, for they seemed to dovetail into one another, and often I had to make a considerable dÉtour to get round the worst of them. This crab-holey ground continued for about four miles, after which I struck into the bush, making for the ranges, and keeping Mount Greenock and Mount Glasgow before me as landmarks. Not being a good bushman, I suspect I went several miles out of my way. However, by dint of steady walking, I contrived to do the sixteen miles in about four hours; but if I have ever occasion to walk from Clunes again, I will take care to take the roundabout road, and not to make the journey en zigzag round crab-holes and through the bush.

Among the other places about here that I have visited were Talbot, about seven miles distant, and Avoca, about twenty. One of the occasions of my going to Talbot was to attend a ball given there, and another to attend a great fÊte for the benefit of the Amherst Hospital. Talbot gives its name to the county, though by no means the largest town in it. The town is very neat and tidy, and contains some good stone and brick buildings. It consists of one principal street, with several little offshoots.

The ball was very like a ball at home, though a little more mixed. The young ladies were some of them very pretty, and nicely dressed—some in dresses "direct from London"—while a few of the elder ladies were gorgeous but incongruous. One old lady, in a juvenile dress, wore an enormous gold brooch, large enough to contain the portraits of several families. I was astonished to learn the great distances that some of the ladies and gentlemen had come to be present at the ball. Some had driven through the bush twenty and even thirty miles; but distance is thought nothing of here, especially when there is a chance of "meeting company." The ball was given in the Odd Fellows' Hall, a large square room. One end of it was partitioned off as a supper-room, and on the partition was sewn up in large letters this couplet from 'Childe Harold:'—

"No sleep till morn, when Youth and Pleasure meet,
To chase the glowing hours with flying feet."

And, to speak the truth, the young ladies, as well as the young gentlemen present, did ample justice to the text. The dancing continued until daybreak, and we drove back to Majorca as the sun was rising; but remember it was summer time, in November, when the sun rises very early.

One little event arose out of this ball which may serve to illustrate the comparative freeness of up-country manners. A nice young lady, with whom I danced, asked me if I would not like to be very great friends with her. "Oh, yes! certainly." And great friends we became at once. Perhaps she took pity on the stranger boy so far from home. She asked if I was fond of riding. "Very fond." "Then I will come over to Majorca, and call upon you, and we shall have a ride in the bush together." And I was to be sure and have some sweets ready for her, as she was very fond of them. I took this to be merely a little ball-room chaff; but judge my surprise when, next afternoon, the young lady rode up to the bank door and called on me to fulfil my promise,—which I did, lollipops and all.

A great event in Talbot is the Annual FÊte, held on the Prince of Wales's birthday, which is observed as a public holiday in Victoria. The fÊte this year was held in aid of the funds of the Amherst Hospital, a valuable local institution. At this affair the whole population of the neighbourhood turned out. It began at midday with a grand procession through the town. Let me endeavour to give you an idea of the pageant. First came the well-mounted Clunes Lancers, in their light blue and white uniforms, 150 strong, blue and white pennons fluttering from their long lances. Then came lines of members of Friendly Societies, in gay scarfs, accompanied by banners. Then a good band of music. The Talbot 42nd Sectional Lancers next turn the corner of the street, gorgeous in scarlet and white. Then comes something comic—a Welsh lady and gentleman riding a pony barebacked. These are followed by an Irish couple, also mounted. Then comes a Highlandman, in a vehicle such as the Highlands never saw, discoursing music from his bagpipes. A large open boat follows, mounted on a car; it is filled with sailor-boys in blue and white. This boat is a model of the 'Cerberus,' the turret-ship that Mr. Reed is building in England for the defence of Port Phillip. A genuine old salt, with long white hair, plays the part of admiral. In cocked hat, blue admiral's coat, and white ducks, he waves his sword frantically, and gives the word of command to repel boarders; all the while two little cannons in the model are being constantly fired, reloaded, and fired again. This noisy exhibition having passed, a trophy representing the Australian chase appears. A huntsman, dressed in green, blowing his horn, stands amidst some bushes, holding a handsome leash of hounds; dead kangaroos and other Australian animals lie around him. Then follow more lancers. After this comes a huge car, two stories high, with all sorts of odd characters in it: a clown, with his "Here we are again!" playing pranks on two sedate-looking Chinamen; a little fairy boy or girl, flirting with a magician; dragons snapping; strange birds screeching; three bears, one playing a violin, but the tune it plays is drowned by the hubbub of noise and bands. A lady, of the time of Elizabeth, gorgeous in ruffles, follows on horseback. Then knights in armour, one of them with a stuffed 'possum snarling on the top of his helmet. Another band. Then the solemn brethren of the Order of Druids, in white gowns, bald heads, and grey beards. A company of sweeps comes next, attended by an active Jack-in-the-Green. Now an Indian doctor appears, smoking a long pipe in his chariot, drawn by a Brahmin bull. Another band, and then the rear is brought up by more cavalry. There were seven bands—good ones, too—in the procession, which took full twenty minutes to pass the hotel, on the balcony of which I stood. I have seen the London Lord Mayor's Show, but must confess the Talbot procession beats it hollow.

After the procession, we all adjourned to the race-course, where the collection for the hospital was to be made. The admission was eighteen-pence; a good sum for working people to give, yet everybody was there. There was an amateur Richardson's show, a magician's tent, Cheap John's merry-go-rounds, and all sorts of amusements to be had by paying for them; and, above all, there was the bazaar, presided over by the ladies of Talbot, who succeeded in selling a large quantity of useless things at the usual exorbitant prices. There was also a large dancing-platform roofed with canvas, which was very well frequented. Most popular of all, perhaps, were the refreshment-bars, where the publicans gave the liquor free, but charged the usual prices for the good of the hospital fund; and the teetotallers, not to be outdone, managed a very comfortable tea-room. In short, all the usual expedients for raising money were cleverly resorted to, and the result was that between 1400l. and 1500l. was added to the funds of the hospital, about 500l. of which was taken at the ladies' bazaar. Altogether, there were not less than 5000 people on the ground, though I believe the newspapers gave a considerably higher number.

The Avoca races were not very different from races in England. Every town hereabouts has its races, even Majorca. The Carrisbrook race-course, about four miles from our town, is considered second to none in the colony. Avoca, however, is a bigger place, and the races there draw a much larger crowd. We drove the twenty miles thither by road and bush-track. The ground was perfectly dry, for there had been no rain for some time; and, as the wind was in our faces, it drove the clouds of dust behind us. I found the town itself large and well-built. What particularly struck me was the enormous width of the main street,—at least three chains wide. The houses on either side of the road were so remote from each other that they might have belonged to different townships. I was told that the reason of this great width of street was, that the Government had reserved this broad space of ground, the main street of Avoca forming part of the road to Adelaide, which may at some future time become a great and crowded highway. One of the finest buildings in the town is a handsome hotel, built of stone and brick, provided with a ball-room, billiard-rooms, and such like. It is altogether the finest up-country place of the kind that I have seen. Here we put up, and join the crowd of loungers under the verandah. Young swells got up in high summer costume—cutaway coats, white hats, and blue net veils—just as at Epsom on the Derby Day. There are also others, heavy-looking colonials, who have come out evidently to make a day of it, and are already freely imbibing cold brandy and water. Traps and cars are passing up and down the street, in quest of passengers for the race-course, about two miles from the town.

There we find the same sort of entertainments provided for the public as on like occasions at home. The course is about a mile and a half in extent, with the ground well cleared. There is the saddling paddock, in which the "knowing ones" take great interest; and there are the usual booths for the sale of refreshments, and especially of drink. In front of the Grand Stand the betting-men from Melbourne are pointed out to me,—a sharp, rough-looking set they are, dressed in Tweed suits and flash ties, wearing diamond rings. One of them, a blear-eyed, tall, strong man, with bushy brown whiskers, bawling out his "two to one" on such and such a horse—an ugly-looking customer—was described to me as "the second biggest blackguard in Victoria; give him a wide berth." Another of the betting-men was pointed out to me as having been a guard on the South-Eastern Railway some ten years ago. I need not describe the races: they were like most others. There were flat races and hurdle races. Six horses ran for the District Plate. Four of them came in to the winning-post, running neck and neck. The race was won by only a head.

My friend remained on the course until it was too late to return to Majorca that night. As the moon did not rise until towards morning, we were under the necessity of waiting until then, otherwise we might get benighted in the bush. We tried to find a bed in the hotel, but in vain. All the beds and sofas in Avoca were occupied. Even the billiard tables were engaged for the night.

We set out on our return journey to Majorca just as the moon was rising. She was only in her second quarter, and did not yet give light enough to enable us to see the road very clearly, so that we went very cautiously at first. While my companion drove, I snatched the opportunity for a sleep. I nodded and dozed from time to time, wakening up suddenly to find a large bright star blinking before my eyes. The star sank lower and lower towards the horizon. The green-gold rays of the morning sun rose up to meet it. The star hovered between the pale growing light below and the dark blue sky above. Then it melted away in the glow of sunrise. The half-moon still cast our shadow on the dusty track. But not for long. The zone of yellow light in the east grows rapidly larger and brighter. The brilliant edge of the god of day tips the horizon; a burst of light follows; and now the morning sun, day's harbinger, "comes dancing up the east." The summits of the trees far away in the silent bush are bathed in gold. The near trees, that looked so weird-like in the moon's half light, are now decked in green. The chill of the night has departed. It is already broad day. By the time we reach Amherst, eight miles from Majorca, we are glad to shade ourselves from the blazing sun. In an hour more we reach our destination, and after breakfast and a bath, are ready to begin the day's duties.