The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1853-12-27 00:00:00

Tao
received frcat a highly respectable gentlen

who is well, connected in this town :

I, thismorning, received a letter from:you, and three
others from—, being the only ones I have IStaleinee I arrived
in the colony;: and although I have sent several home, yet it
appears that none have come to hand, which is no wonder,
in the present state of the colonial post-ogee,- and of the.
whole country. I will, therefore, repeat alli have said in:
the others,.or as much as I can recollect. I:came out in
the Dalhousie, one of 350 passengers. Wee had a goodi
passage of 'B4;days, by the great circle mode of sailing,
having sighted no land between Plymouth and Port
Philip. The hardships of the passage were many, but,.
being strong and healthy, I got through them pretty well,
and have since gone through so many worse; that I look:
back with a:smile on what I once thought' dreadful. On,
my arrivali at Melbourne, I found nothing: one is led to.
expect by the accounts one gets at home. Thousands.
were starving in the town, who were too4proud or too lazy
to work. Surveyors, clerks, shopmen, &o. swarmed ; andi
there was: no opening except for a labouring man or
mechaniel. so I put my pack on my back, and with: my
funds,—reduced to 25s.,—started to thes"diggings." How
much is comprehended in that word : lordships in, the en-
treme, bad living, and, in 999 cases out of 1000, bad luck !
it beingsupposed that out of 70,000 diggers there at onee,
40,000 don't get fair wages, 20,000 pretty good, and 10,000
high. Out of the latter there are very,few who get fir-
tunes,.getting tired of working up to their middle in:mud
from daylight till dark, and living- on mutton, dam-
per, and strong green tea, without milk, butter, or any-
thing that at home are thought necessaries. I came.back
to Melbourne, having been pretty lucky : it was all a lot-
tery.. Melbourne is a vast sink of Nice and misery.. Rob-
beries.eommitted in the open day, and people wailtiag in
the streets, and serving out goods. in their shops,. armed
to.the-teeth—men enter gold-buyers' stores, in the mid-
dle of the day, clap a pistol to his head, andrifleilia shop,
tie.and gag him, and walk away insecurity ! Bad as are
the- descriptions of California, the. reality here, is a great
deal, worse, or rather was, as things are now getting
more settled. In Melbourne I did:many things, which, at
home, would be thought low ; but here :you, had better put
your pride in your pocket, or threw it away.. k bought a
horse, and cart, and fetched woodtand water,.and worked a
whale-boat in the bay, and then:a.lighter on. the river, and
laughed in my sleeve as I saw others storming. from pride,
(as there is plenty of 'war& for those who. will do it,)
whilst I pocketed from £lB tio£29.a week; amongst others
I saw poor —, stone-breaking on.the new roads. I then
went into the mounted police, till I learnt to be a good
horseman, and then back Melbourne adieu, as although
there is plenty of money to)be made,. yet firing is bad and
dear,as a week for miserable board and lodging, and 20s.
a night for horse keep. I faced the bush, went on a cattle
station for trifling wages, and learnt the routine, the chief
part of which is hard siding and cracking the stock whip,
which has a lash 18 feet long, and a handle only 18 inches,
and has power to cat pieces out of cattle. The life is
dangerous, but all the. more exciting when au fait at the
business. I started tattle-driving on the roads to market ;
a hard life, sleeping out nights together, with no covering
but the sky ; and now in winter the rain falls for weeks
together. My chief route is from the Western districts to.
Melbourne, a distance of three or four hundred miles ; and
as the cattle travel only fifteen miles, (having to be kept
fat to the market,) the journey down occupies some time;;
but you come up; at your• own pace ; the wages are from
£5 to £6 a week; but I hope two years will put me on my
own bottom, and then the road to fortune is open tome;
for this is a country where they are made and lost, in a
day. Unless one has a trade, there is no opening in the
country bat- for the young and able-bodied, and the more
of them that come the better—provided they bring stout
hearts with them, otherwise they had better stay at home.
If, like me, they take a decisive step, and ga through
without flinching, they may all hope to get enough while
young to live comfortable ever afterwards. A man here
must hold his own in many cases by his own strength,
and need show no mercy, as he will get none. Pride is
worse than useless, and money worse than useless ; for
unless he can bring hundreds—he had better bring none.
RAO is plenty. Depend upon it, tido is the true
rule : all books on the colony are trash. Without ex-
ception they paint the bright side, but never the darker
and more frequent one. What would a dwawing-room-
bred booby think of my appearance, I wonder. My
dress is a cabbage tree hat, long boots and breeches, and a
blue shirt. On my saddle are strapped
.a quart pot and
pannikin, my blankets, and a bag containing a few pounds
of flour, and a little tea and sugar. With these I can
travel for days without thanking any one. Not forgetting
the stock-whip, without which I might move, but the
cattle would not. My horse would be cheap in London at
£6O; and I have three others of equal value, all ray own.
Now for the 'country ;it is magnificent. Not far from
where I am writi4g this letter, there is a station, in the
Grampians which, rise 5,000 feet above the plain at the
back of the hut. In front runs a rapid river, which in
summer is only a chain of muddy water-holes, but at tins
season of the year, a few miles further down, projects a
body of water, 60 yards wide, over a perpendicular height
of 175 feet, and supposed to be the finest falls in the world,
Niagara only excepted. You can pass right under the
falls at the expense of a wet coat, when the river is
impassable by the floods. It is, indeed, a country of anoma-
lies : the flowers are beautiful, without scent ; the birds
are feathered with every colour of the rainbow, but have

no song, and the trees
whilst the stones of the cherries grow outside the fruit
Horses fed only on grass have immense power of enduring
fatigue, 60 miles being a common day's journey. I have
myself ridden one horse 55 miles in four hours, without a

rest, and on one occasion the same horse 140 miles between
sunrise and sunset. liiithing hi England could come up
to this.

"The harbour of Port Philip is one of the f nest in the
world all the fleets of Europe might ride there with
ease and safety ; and the entrance being high and narrow,
and the passage being full of dangerous shoals: a few heavy