The Hawaiian gazette. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu, Hawaii]) 1865-1918, 1878-09-11
WEDNESDAY, SEPT. II. 1873.
The Gold Mines of BalIarat.
BY J. ". INGRAM.

y
aims like Gagged bird longed to see the green
plains and feel the freedom of the wide prairie.
| concluded to seek change in a tour to the
gold mines of Ballarat, one hundred miles out in
the mountains from Melbourne. Taking the cars
one clear sunsbny morning at the Victorian
capital, | was soon moving out of Melbourne
through the suburbs. by water-works and way
stations, out on the wide grasscoYered Werribee
plans. The railway along the beach for sew
eral miles, then turned across the prairie. The
bay lay on the left like polished mirror, its dark
blue waters radatng in the sunlight. On the
right the green plain ran off into the sky, Its
eastern border bounded By the white horizon Of
the bending armament. Melbourne Bay resem
bles the Bay of Galveston, but it does not grow
the shoals of oysters that fatten in the sounds Of
the Lone Star State, or in the waters of the
Chesapeake. Great herds of cattle, grazing over
the plain lift their shaggy beads to watch the
train go by. Cottages of the herders are dotted
over the prairie.
The Australian prairies do not compare wit h
the immense sweep of the Nebraskian plains or
the swells of the Texan prairies. On we are
whired, by the cabins of ruad men and station
hands, with groups of haxen-haired children gath
cred around their doors and swinging on the
gates. Out in the middle OF the prairie we put
on steam and redoube our speed, aud the tee-
graph poles go flying and dancing by in rapid
succession. The coat CT grass with its heavy
growth rolls in moving swells over the plain. No
trees are in sight, nothing but this level, fiat
panse of green spread ont in the distance, sky
girdled, with point OF the bay running in like a
blue streak in the south. We run into Geeong
u bayside village on the edge of the prairie. We
run over gentle swells through short growth Of
round topped trees that cover the ridges with
their scrubby bushes on over bridges, past
streams on whose grassy banks goats and COWS
are grazing. A wheat field, with its green square
enclosed in trees. occasionally appears, with log
house sending out its stream OF smoke, and from
whose yard issues pack of barking dogs. In the
doorway stands the matron, looking out over
row of little ones in front, like rising stairway
Of cotton-heads. The country now becomes more
rugged and broken; we now begin to climb the
mountain in many winding curve, through tun-
nels and cuts blasted cut of the granite hills As
we ascend the mountain the air becomes rarer
and purer and the winds whistle through the
branches aud roar through the forest aud become
biting cold. In the cool bracing atmosphere
mans lungs expand like wet sponge, and his
whole system feels like u lost fish returning To
its watery element. The buoyant effect of the
pure mountain air is exhllarating, and its life
restoring vigor stimulates one into new crea-
ton.
The miners axe has denuded the mountains of
their timber, and they are now only covered with
q growth of underbrush. We passed by hills
knocked and battered to pieces, gorges dug up
and turned over, beds of streams thrown bottom
| IL IL.
naman is snoveliDg the sand and gravel into his
washing box, with the decayed remains of some
miners cabin standing amid the debris. The
earth is torn and ragged, rent and heaved into q
frightful state of disorder, sunk pits, piled in
heaps of yellow clay.
By aud by the tall chimneys of the mining
shafts, heaps Of slatecolored ore, piles of tangs
sluice-boXes, spades, shoveIs, picks, windlasses,
columns of black smoke aud the roar of crushing
mills, regiments of bearded miners, sun-tanned
and weather stained, up to their knees in clay.
| colored water, with the cabins of miners appear
! and we whired into Ballarat.
| The blessed sight of quartz heaps and piles of
crushed ore present their familiar countenance
standing around like gray pyramids, and the
welcome music Of stamp mills salute the ear,
seemed to have suddenly stepped into California
| walked out TO pile of quartz. | sat upon it,
| put some of it in my bat. Every aspect and
feature of a mining town attract the eye like old
friends seem to call out, halo, old fellow, used
| to know you IN the Sierra Nevada's. felt that
l had got home once more. There is an indie
| scrlbable fascination about mining town to all
| Californians.
As l wendell my way up into the town,
crowds of schoochildren. neatly dressed, with
their books, states and buckets, are returning
home, making the streets lively with their sports
| and gambols.
Balarat numbers 10000 people. Its public
buildings are commodious. 1t has fine City
Hall and Postoffce. Its hotels are better than
those in Melbourne A broad avenue 100 yards
in width, extends through the central part of the
| city. Two rows of green shady trees run
through the centre of the avenue, enclosed by
white picket fence, set with plants and shrub
berry that resemble park, stretching q mile
through the city.
The private mansions are in good taste, with
front yards and grassy lawns. 1t ls the most
| Americanzed place have seen in the antipodes
Its Inhabitants are from all chimes under the sum-
and of every nationality extant Its tone is de-
cidedly cosmopolitan. Its people are amiable
| Cliques and rings here abound not. The press is
well represented, there being one evening and
two morning papers of more literary merit than
the Melbourne journals The city is high and
BEAUTIFULLY located in the basin of circular range
of mountains 1000 feet above the sea. Two
wooded cones rise mp in the east like sugar
loaves The mountain air puts bloom upon the
cheeks of the ladies', and the children and shop
girls are pictures of bounding health, refreshing
contrast to the tallow.co mpexioned inhabitants
of the capital city. On the right of the main
avenue stands the Ballarat Hospital, an elegant
building Of white stone, with its front yard set
with shrubs and flowers 1t furnishes comfortable
quarters to the veteran miners who have spent
their hey-dey of life in the mines. 49, -
Farther to the left stands the Benevolent Asy-
lum. 1t resembles Hebrew seminary with its
turrets and towers, with handsome grounds made
attractive with fountains and evergreens. Here
are housed the MANNED, the halt, the blind, the
aged, the crippled of every degree. About its
grounds and on its yerandas are groups of white
haired miners bent with years, some with an arm
of or leg missing, who have been blown up in
the mines or fallen from scaffolG. Aged women
are hobbling about the grounds on clutches or
wheeled about in chairs. Here | will say. to the
credit of the Colonies. they are ahead of America
in the way of hospitals. At the head of the ave.
nue. is q lake one mile wide and three miles long.
a great many California miners came here in
the palmy days Of the mines and left their I'M
press on the town. In the big days in the good
old times Fourth Of July celebration was car
ried out with great pomp, and the Stars and