Chapter I.



INTRODUCTORY REMARKS


It may be deemed presumptuous that one of my age and sex should venture
to give to the public an account of personal adventures in a land which
has so often been descanted upon by other and abler pens; but when I
reflect on the many mothers, wives, and sisters in England, whose
hearts are ever longing for information respecting the dangers and
privations to which their relatives at the antipodes are exposed,
I cannot but hope that the presumption of my undertaking may be
pardoned in consideration of the pleasure which an accurate description
of some of the Australian Gold Fields may perhaps afford to many; and
although the time of my residence in the colonies was short, I had the
advantage (not only in Melbourne, but whilst in the bush) of constant
intercourse with many experienced diggers and old colonists--thus
having every facility for acquiring information respecting Victoria and
the other colonies.

It was in the beginning of April, 185-, that the excitement
occasioned by the published accounts of the Victoria "Diggings,"
induced my brother to fling aside his Homer and Euclid for the various