two companies were the possessors of the land, and the Sydney speculators arrived a few days too late.
Now came the division of the 20,000 acres. A line was drawn across the middle; a coin was tossed up to decide which of the two should have the first choice, and fortune favoured the “snobs,” who selected the northern half, called by the natives Burra Burra. To the southern part the “nobs” gave the name of “Princess Royal”. The companies soon began operations; but though the two districts appeared on the surface to be of almost equal promise, yet, on being laid open, the Princess Royal was soon found to be in reality poor, while the Burra Burra mines provided fortunes for each of the fortunate “snobs”. During the three years after their discovery they yielded copper to the value of ?700,000. Miners were brought from England, and a town of about 5,000 inhabitants rapidly sprang into existence. The houses of the Cornish miners were of a peculiar kind. A creek runs through the district, with high precipitous banks of solid rock; into the face of these cliffs the miners cut large chambers to serve for dwellings; holes bored through the rock, and emerging upon the surface of the ground above, formed the chimneys, which were capped by small beer barrels instead of chimney-pots. The fronts of the houses were of weatherboard, in which doors were left; and for two miles along each side of the stream these primitive dwellings looked out upon the almost dry bed of the creek, which formed the main street of the village. Here the miners dwelt for years, until the waters rose one night into a foaming flood, which destroyed the houses and swept away several of their inhabitants.
In 1845 Burra Burra was a lonely moor; in 1850 it was bustling with men, and noisy with the sounds of engines, pumps and forges. Acres of land were covered with the company’s warehouses and offices, and the handsome residences of its officers; behind these there rose great mounds of blue, green, and dark-red ores of copper, worth enormous sums of money. Along the roads eight hundred teams, each consisting of eight bullocks, passed constantly to and fro, whilst scores of ships were employed in conveying the ore to England. From this great activity the whole community could not but derive the utmost benefit, and for a time South Australia had every prospect of taking the foremost place among the colonies.
5. Governor Robe.—In 1841 Governor Grey had been of the greatest service to the colony in changing the state of its prospects, but he was not permitted to see more than the commencement of its great prosperity; for, in 1845, he was sent to govern New Zealand, where troubles had arisen similar to those which he had helped to cure in South Australia. His place was filled by Colonel Robe, a military gentleman, of what is called the old school, honourable and upright, but inclined to think that everything ought always to be as it has been. He disliked all innovation, and did what he could to prevent it, much to the discontent of the young and thriving colony, which was of necessity the scene of constant and rapid changes. He passed a very troublous time for three years, and in 1848 was heartily glad to be recalled.
6. Governor Young.—The colony was then placed under the care of Sir Henry Young, whose policy was completely the reverse. He sought by every means in his power to encourage the ceaseless activity of the people. His failing was, perhaps, an injudicious zeal for progress. For instance, in his desire to open up the river Murray to navigation, he wasted large sums of money in schemes that proved altogether useless. He made an effort to remove the bar at the mouth of the river, but fresh deposits of sand were constantly being brought down by the current, and lashed up into a new bar by the waves that rolled ceaselessly in from the Southern Ocean. He spent about ?20,000 in trying to construct a harbour called Port Elliot, near the entrance to the Murray; but there are now only a few surf-beaten stones to indicate the scene of his fruitless attempt. He offered a bonus of ?4,000 to the first person who should ascend the Murray in an iron steamer as far as the river Darling. A gentleman called Cadell made the effort, and succeeded; he obtained the reward, but it was not enough to pay his heavy expenses, and when he endeavoured afterwards to carry on a trade, by transporting wool to the sea in flat- bottomed steamers, he found that the traffic on the river was not sufficiently great to repay his heavy outlay, and in a short time he was almost ruined. The attempt was premature; and though, in our time, the navigation of the Murray is successfully carried on, and is, undoubtedly, of immense advantage not only to South Australia, but also to New South Wales and Victoria, yet, at the time when the first efforts were made, it led to nothing but loss, if not ruin to the pioneers.
CHAPTER XII.
THE DISCOVERY OF GOLD.
1. Importance of the Year 1851.—The year 1851 was in many ways an eventful one to Australia. In that year the colonies received from the Imperial Parliament the amended Constitutions they had so long expected. Tasmania, South Australia, Port Phillip, and Western Australia were now no longer under the absolute control of Governors sent out by the colonial authorities in England; they could henceforth boast the dignity of being self-governed communities, for, in 1851, they were invested with political powers which had previously been possessed by New South Wales alone. They now had the privilege of electing two-thirds of the members of a Legislative Council which not only had the power of making laws each for its own colony, but also of framing any new constitution for itself according to its own taste and requirements. Each colony kept its Legislative Council for only a year or two until it could discuss and establish a regular system of parliamentary government with two Houses and a Cabinet of responsible Ministers. Again, it was on the 1st of July in the same year that Port Phillip gained its independence; from that date onward its prosperous career must be related under its new title— Victoria.
But the event which made the year 1851 especially memorable in the annals of Australia was the discovery, near Bathurst, of the first of those rich goldfields which, for so long a time, changed the prospects of the colonies. For several years after the date of this occurrence the history of Australia is little more than the story of the feverish search for gold, with its hopes, its labour, its turmoil, and its madness; its scenes of exultation and splendid triumph, and its still more frequent scenes of bitter and gloomy disappointment.
2. Early Rumours of Gold.—For many years there had been rumours that the Blue Mountains were auriferous. It was said that gold had been seen by convicts in the days of Macquarie, and, indeed, still earlier; but to the stories of prisoners, who claimed rewards for alleged discoveries, the authorities in Sydney always listened with extreme suspicion, more especially as no pretended discoverer could ever find more than his first small specimens.
In 1840 a Polish nobleman named Strzelecki, who had been travelling among the ranges round Mount Kosciusko, stated that, from indications he had observed, he was firmly persuaded of the existence of gold in these mountains; but the Governor asked him, as a favour, to make no mention of a theory which might, perhaps, unsettle the colony, and fill the easily excited convicts with hopes which, he feared, would prove delusive. Strzelecki agreed not to publish his belief; but there was another man of science who was not so easily to be silenced. The Rev. W. B. Clarke, a clergyman devoted to geology, exhibited specimens in Sydney, on which he based an opinion that the Blue Mountains would, eventually, be found to possess goldfields of great extent and value. Some of these were taken to London by Strzelecki; and in 1844 a great English scientist, Sir Roderick Murchison, read a paper before the Royal Geographical Society in which he expressed a theory similar to that of Mr. Clarke. In 1846 he again called attention to this subject, and showed that, from the great similarity which existed between the rocks of the Blue Mountains and those of the Urals, there was every probability that the one would be found as rich as the other was known to be in the precious metals. So far as theory could go, the matter had been well discussed before the year 1851, but no one had ventured to spend his time and money in making a practical effort to settle the question.
3. Edward Hargraves.—About that, time, however, the rich mines of California attracted a Bathurst settler, named Edward Hargraves, to seek his fortune on the banks of the Sacramento; and though, among the great crowds of struggling and jostling diggers, he met with but little success, yet he learned the methods by which gold is discovered and secured, and laid the foundation for adventures in Australia which were afterwards to bring him both wealth and renown. Whilst he toiled with increasing disappointment on one of these famous goldfields, the scenery around him, and the appearance of the rocks, recalled to his memory a certain secluded valley beyond the Blue Mountains, which he had visited thirteen years before; the notion floated vaguely through his mind that, perhaps, in that silent spot, there might lie great treasures, such as he saw his more fortunate companions from time to time draw forth from the rocks and soil around him. Day after day the image of that
