THE GOLD-FIELDS OF NEW SOUTH WALES.
THE WELLINGTON ROAD.
FROM OUR SPECIAL COMMISSIONER
No. 15.
THE Ironbark Diggings extend, as I have said, down to the Wellington Road, where
digging has been going on for a considerable time past. The main road from Bathurst to
Wellington runs for some distance along the banks of a creek, generally known as the
Wellington Creek, and it is in this creek that the holes have been principally sunk. They
have been good paying diggings, but have never been rendered celebrated by any very
extraordinary finds. Here, as elsewhere, water was getting very scarce, and some strict
arrangements were rendered necessary in order to preserve a supply for domestic
purposes. Several puddling machines, I counted half a dozen, have been erected here, but,
with one exception, they were all idle for want of rain. I should think that about 100 men
were employed in this locality at digging or otherwise, but I have included these in my
estimate of the population of the Ironbark. About the centre of these diggings, some five
and twenty houses of slab and bark, public houses, stores, shops, &c., were assembled;
and, being built with some regularity, they gave an air of settlement to the place that was
quite refreshing to look upon. At the western extremity of the worked ground, and at
some distance from it, the Commissioner's Camp is situated. The buildings had been but
newly erected, and were constructed, in true bush style, of slab and bark. They had the
neat, cleanly, and orderly appearance that forms so strong a feature in the Government
buildings on the diggings, as to enable a stranger, at once to tell the Government camp on
passing it, the contrast with the disorder, and too often uncleanliness of the digger in his
camp, being so great as not to escape the eye even of the least observant.
The diggings bearing this name are barely two miles from the Wellington Road. I found
them all but deserted, there being scarcely twenty men left at work upon them, The
sinking here, as at Wellington Road, has never done anything more than pay, if I except
only one patch of ground, of about half an acre in area, that turned out remarkably well. It
was upon this patch that the enormous finds, chronicled in the journals of the day, took
place; the great yield being obtained in the surface stuff. The richness of the surfacing
got abroad, and of course a rush was the consequence. Thousands were assembled on the
ground in an incredibly short space of time, but with all the working, washing, and
cradling, beyond the magic area. I have mentioned, not even wages could be
obtained from surfacing. Sinking was then resorted to, and the ground certainly obtained
a fair trial, but nothing beyond good wages was realised, and with this, the adventurers
assembled on the place, mostly Victorians, were not to be satisfied. Some spread
themselves over the country in search of another such a spot, and to some of these the
opening of the Ironbark is due, others packed up and returned to the several places they
had left or visited other rushes, until now scarcely twenty men are left at work, where
thousands had been so recently collected. These still potter about the old holes and
sinkings where large finds have been had, in the expectation of falling upon some stray
nuggets that, in the excitement of the moment, the lucky digger that had gone before
them might by possibility have overlooked. In this they are often successful, whilst the
majority of the stuff pays good steady wages, with a supply of water. This wonderful
half-acre patch, the richness of which caused so much excitement at the time, is situated
rather high up the creek, and near to Cobden's Inn, and the chief part of the working has
been in that locality. I was informed that it had been computed that 5000 persons had
come upon the oreek within two months after the great discovery there. Four fifths of this
number have since left. There are two inns, and some four or five huts clustered together
at the entrance into the creek of the Ironbark Road, but there was no business stirring in
any of them, and the whole place had an exceedingly melancholy and deserted
appearance.
This creek gives its name to the Commissioner's district undor the charge of Mr. McLean.
It consists of an area of about forty miles in length by thirty miles in width, and is
considered to give employment to 1250 diggers. These are distributed as
follows: Burrandong, 100; Muckrawa, 100; Ironbark, Stoney Creek, and Wellington
Road, 1000; and Ophir, 50. The total population of all classes, miners, traders, women,
children, &c., may be about 1700. Ophir lies at the extreme boundary of this district,
being very nearly 40 miles from the Wellington Road, and as so few men were employed
here, it being all but deserted except by a few miserable fossickers, and as I should have
had to travel back the same distance to put myself once more in the line of diggings, I did
not think it worth my while to go so far out of my way for so little, the more particularly
since these diggings, being the first opened have been so often visited and so frequently
described. I have, however, the authority of several persons, practical mineral and
scientific gentlemen, for saying that this ground has not been anything like worked out,
the first diggers, here as elsewhere, having done their work in anything but the complete
manner in which it is performed now-a-days, at least where the diggers take a fancy to
the spot. At all events it is quite certain that the whole of the old ground would pay well
for sluicing on a large scale. The other portions of the diggings, with the exception of
Burrendong and Muckrawa, are of comparatively recent date as gold-fields: and hitherto
the gold has been found pretty generally and evenly diffused, every man at work on the
ground being sure to get something, whether more or less. In the two spots excepted, the
gold being coarse and nuggetty, has not of course been so generally spread, and therefore
whilst the prices have been larger, the blanks have also been more frequent. Taking the
five months of the present year, there has been sent down by escort from thi ,district an
average amount Of 400 ozs. per month, the quantity in April being 421 ozs., and in May
74 ozs. It must, however, be borne in mind that this is not the whole quantity produced
here, as very few of the diggers sell more gold than is requisite to obtain the means of
purchasing necessaries. Besides this, the disappointment at Stoney Creek, the subsequent
prospecting, and the opening of the Ironbark, have all tended to diminish the yield from
this quarter to a very considerable extent.
To keep in order this large number of persons, the extensive staff of five constables, is
maintained; and yet with every temptation to crime and disorder to crime from the nature
of the dwellings, nine-tenths of which are tents, and to disorder, from the almost total
absence of police, the weekly average of cases disposed of by the Police Bench is very
small ; the cases of all kinds, drunkenness, &c, included, reaching to about ten per week;
whilst the committals for trial hardly average two per month. In fact, here, as at most of
the country benches, cases of minor theft are summarily dealt with, not only for the
saving to the country, but for the purpose of securing punishment for, offences, as in
ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, a digger would not consent to prosecute if he
imagined that he would have to take a journey to Bathurst in consequence. In this
district, ; there are sixteen licensed public-houses, some of them being as good and as
well conducted as any I have seen on the diggings. At Stoney Creek, which was
originally looked upon as the grand centre of these diggings, there are Episcopalian and
Roman Catholic places of worship. No school has yet been established here, though I was
glad to find from some of the more settled residents on the Wellington Road that they
were about to take immediate steps towards the establishment of a National school in
their vicinity.
The distance from the Ironbark to the Louisa Creek, by the direct road, is about 40 miles.
As my old horse began to show signs of weariness, I was not at all inclined to put him to
so long a day's stage, on an unknown road, that offered no accommodation to the traveller.
By no accommodation, I mean no public accommodation in inns, though even to reach a
Squatting station it would be necessary for the traveller to turn off his road; a thing that I
never like to do when journeying. To prevent, then, all possibility of inconvenience, for a
night in the bush in the sharp frosts that prevailed here would have been anything but
pleasant, to say nothing of the absence of supper after a hard day's ride, I made up my
mind to return to Burrendong, and thence make a start the next morning for Louisa. It
was already late in the day when I left the Wellington Road, and I jogged steadily along,
intending to dine at Muckrawa.
It was Sunday morning, and the Ironbark was as still and orderly as the streets of Sydney
on the same day. The inn at Muckrawa, at which I had previously put up in passing, was
being re-roofed at the time, and the landlord, with a proper eye to business, had the bark
first placed over his bar, the saddle sheets were, however, wanting, and the result was
that, as a small drizzling rain was falling, during the time I stopped there, his compter and,
his emmisaries standing at it, might as well have been out of doors, for all the shelter they
got. For my own part, I was shown into a room covered only on the side with bark, and
as this side happened to be to leeward, the rain made a clean breach nearly through the
apartment, and it was only by getting into the extreme corner that I managed to obtain
shelter. In this way, I took a rather uncomfortable meal, hardly venturing to put out my
arms to help myself against the stern veto of the rain drops that peppered me during the
carving process. I, however, argued that the home mast be now completed, and, as I had
been well and civilly served, 1 had better return to where my face was known; and so I
resolved to dine again at a place that was evidently doomed to work me discomfort. On
arriving at Muckrawa I passed the first inn, which is rather more than half a mile nearer
the Ironbark than the second one, resisting with stoic fortitude the attack upon my
olfactories made by a glorious roast, that some evil-minded cook was certainly burning,
for the scent reached me and caused my mouth to water as I passed, and eagerly, on
dining thoughts intent, made my way for the second hostelry. But, even before reaching
the house, my confidence failed me, for I heard a confused series of interjectionable
objurgations arising from it then a skirmish, and then I saw three men come tumbling in
most extraordinary confusion out of the back door. Nearing the spot I found that two of
these men were friends of the third, whom they were endeavouring to get home. He had
evidently taken far more nobblers than he could conveniently carry, though he was most
pertinacious in assuring his companions that that he was not drunk, not he -- on the
contrary he was quite sober and capable of knocking off the head of the landlord, and, as
I passed him at the moment, of any horse-riding wretch. This of course was seasoned
with the ordinary quantity of expletives, employed by ignorant men in their cups; and as a
matter of course was not noticed by your humble servant, any further than to make him
tremble -- not at the threat, but for his dinner. On dismounting at the inn, a volley of the
most blasphemous oaths, and a tirade of the most filthily obscene language I had ever
heard greeted my ears. I knew at once the voice of the landlord, and from the sound he
was evidently exceedingly intoxicated. A poor little girl of about eight or nine years of
age opened the door as I got off my horse, and looked out with a frightened air, as though
she had expected a visit from the police patrol that perambulates the diggings, and more
particularly on Sunday. The little creature gave a sigh of relief when her eye fell upon my
melancholy visage, for I must have looked sorrowful, as all hope of dinner had now
entirely departed. She told me that nobody was at home but father, and that he was lying
down. She could not well deny his being at home, as his voice and his oaths could be
heard without knocking at the door. With a heavy heart, I turned away from the door,
heavy for the loss of my dinner; but heavier, oh, far heavier, for the lot of that poor little
child, doomed to sit on the Lord's Day, and listen to the frightful language of her own
father. I took nothing in the house, for I could not, though it had been to save my life,
have tasted the liquor that I saw working such dreadful effects; but I lumped on my horse
and hastened him on the road to Burrendong, in order to get out of hearing of that
disgusting voice. I arrived at Burrendong early in the afternoon, but my adventures for
the day were not yet over. I had luckily secured my dinner by eating it, therefore expect
no more complaints on that score. There were, however, some eight or ten persons
drinking in the bar, and some of these got to skylarking. Now the skylarking of a lot of
sturdy diggers is very much the kind of recreation that you would imagine a lot of bears
to take; consisting of heavy dabs with the open hand on the face or head, bonnetting, that
is, dragging a hat over one's eyes, or knocking off one's head, and in giving a leg, or in
other words putting your leg behind a man and throwing him over heavily. All this is
done with such a light playfulness as you would expect to see in the graceful quadruped
before mentioned. This went on for some time, until at last an elderly man, rejoicing in
the cognomen of Bomford, who had managed to drink himself into a very advanced stage
of loquaciousness, forced himself into notice, and soon became the butt of the company.
One stout active young man, who had been conspicuous in the skylarking, offered to treat
him to a nobbler, if he could slap him on the face. The sparring began, and I must say was
carried on good humouredly enough, the young man pretending every now and then to be
hit heavily, and falling to the ground. The matter, however, ended ultimately more
seriously, for the youngster held out his leg for the old man to try, by a sharp blow with
his foot, to knock him over. Romford made the attempt, but failed. He then put out his leg
for the other to have the same chance; and instantly, by a sharp kick, the old man lay
sprawling. On endeavouring to raise him, however, it was found that he could not stand;
and soon it was discovered that his leg was broken by the blow, just a little above the
ankle. The young man did all in his power to remedy the evil he had committed, by
mounting a horse, -- it was then just dark, -- and riding off to the Ironbark for the only
doctor in reach. For my own part, I was uncomfortable enough that night. Independently
of the disagreeableness of witnessing such scenes, particularly on the Sabbath, the
accident upset all the domestic arrangements of the inn, and I had to sleep on a sofa in the
parlour, and of course was kept out of bed till everybody else had retired. Then, just as I
had got into a sound sleep, the doctor arrived, and -- no, he did not visit his patient, but
-- had a couple of glasses of hot brandy, and went to bed on the table within arm's reach
of myself. Diggers are not treated by professional men in the same ceremonious manner
as patients in town, for it was after nine ' o'clock before I left the next day, in
consequence of the late hours of the previous night having retarded the breakfast of the
following morning, and even then I left the worthy disciple of Esculapius engaged in very
leisurely making a pair of splints for the wounded leg out of the lid of a gin case, he
having stuffed a couple of long calico bags with, rape seed out of the same convenient
surgical repository. How much longer he would be before he reduced the fracture, I am of
course unable to say. I have been rather prolix upon these occurrences, but I do not
conceive that you will think your space thrown away since they bear a moral, and a
severe one, that anyone with sense may understand.