The Wreck, 397 



day's labour. These are the grass-cutters, the inmates of the tent, 

 who are employed on the swamp cutting grass for the Melbourne 

 brick-makers. A stranger coming suddenly upon this group would 

 be puzzled at first to guess their occupation or station in life. They 

 might be smugglers — a supposition which the situation of their tent 

 well favoured 3 or they might even be bush-rangers, who had pitched 

 upon this wild spot as a camping place. Two of them are unmis- 

 takably sailors, whose profession can be detected at a glance 5 but 

 what the rest may be it is more difficult to say. The old cabbage- 

 tree hat, the blue jumper, and the moleskin trousers bespeak the 

 working-man, but it is plain this is not the station they were 

 born for, and, although almost every other sentence they utter is 

 garnished by some strange oath or colonial slang, it is certain that 

 better things might be expected from their lips. 



It was in the early days of the diggings, and men of every coun- 

 Xxj, of every station in society, had swelled the ranks of adven- 

 turers that flocked to this new Eldorado. All, however, were not 

 successful on the gold-fields 3 and as some means of subsistence 

 must be found, and light places in Melbourne were eagerly snapped 

 up by such men as really either could not or dared not face the 

 bush on their own account, many a young man of high birth and 

 good education found himself in a situation which a year 

 before he little dreamt ever of filling. To their credit I will say 

 that they most of them took well to the new life, and I have had 

 many proofs in Australia that "an ounce of blood is worth a 

 pound of flesh " in the struggle through life as well as on the race- 

 course. It was very difficult at that time to say who was who in 

 the bush. I recollect on one station where I was camped, a clergy- 

 man of the Church of England was hut-keeper to a lot of Sydney 

 sheep-shearers 3 and stopping one day on the road to accost the 

 younger son of a lord whom I had known at home, but who was 

 then seated on a stone-heap, industriously breaking stones at so 

 much per yard, he told me that he was in rare company, for his 

 next neighbour was nephew to a bishop. These were, indeed, 

 strange times, and such as I fancy we are hardly likely to seeagain^ 



