6 A HISTORY OF THE COLONY OF VICTORIA 



undulating forested hills, the ferny creeks, the grassy slopes, and 

 the picturesque Yarrowee with its wattle groves and reposeful beauty, 

 were in a few weeks converted into an arena of physical wreckage 

 and human struggle and greed. The yawning pits around were 

 suggestive of the graveyard of some plague-infected district ; acres 

 were covered with heaps of disgorged gravel and muck; pools of 

 slimy, yellow, clay-stained water, sludge, dirt and disorder were 

 everywhere. Tents of canvas, huts of bark or slabs, and even the 

 primitive aboriginal mia-mia of gathered boughs, afforded indifferent 

 nightly shelter to the stalwart, eager workers, and the deliriously 

 exciting but exacting labour went on incessantly while daylight 

 lasted. Every man and every party was working then for his 

 or their own benefit, and the restriction of the hours of labour was 

 limited by physical endurance, and not by resolutions of trades 

 unions. By the end of September there were fully 2,000 people at 

 work on the field ; a month later the number had nearly doubled, 

 and it continued to increase until the middle of November, when 

 disturbing rumours of the marvellous yields at Mount Alexander 

 caused all who were only moderately successful to abandon their 

 claims and rush off to the new land of promise. 



The Mount Alexander goldfield, under which title the whole of 

 the central auriferous district of the colony was for a time officially 

 known, was discovered accidentally on the 20th of July. A hut- 

 keeper, named Peters, on Dr. Barker's station came upon an alluvial 

 deposit in the bed of Barker's Creek, a tributary of the Loddon Eiver, 

 and communicated his discovery to three of his fellow-servants. They 

 managed to keep the fact to themselves for a few weeks, and panned 

 out some very satisfactory results, until roving prospectors came 

 across their trail, and by September something like two hundred 

 diggers were turning over the soil on this and the adjacent creeks. 

 The richest yields were at first obtained on Forest Creek, especi- 

 ally in the neighbourhood where it junctioned with Barker's and 

 Campbell's Creeks, the site of the present town of Castlemaine. 

 Working outwards from this centre, the rapidly increasing army of 

 diggers seemed to find success in every direction. In October 

 Fryer's Creek, five miles to the south, was opened up with astonish- 

 ing results, and early in November the stragglers were attracted 



