The Distribution Of
Letters Did Not Follow This Happy Event With Great Rapidity.
Volunteers
had to be called in to sort the delivery, the papers were thrown into a
heap in the road, and all anxious for news were politely requested to help
themselves.
Several illustrated periodicals were regularly sent me from
home, as I learnt afterwards, but I never had the luck to drop across my
own paper!
On mail day, the date of which was most uncertain as the coach journeys
soon overlapped, there was always a lengthy, well-attended "roll-up" at
the Store. Here we first made acquaintance with Messrs. Browne and Lyon,
then negotiating for the purchase of Bayley's fabulous mine of gold.
No account of the richness of this claim at that time could be too
extravagant to be true; for surely such a solid mass of gold was never
seen before, as met the eye in the surface workings.
Messrs. Browne and Lyon had at their camp a small black-boy whom they
tried in vain to tame. He stood a good deal of misplaced kindness, and
even wore clothes without complaint; but he could not bear having his hair
cut, and so ran away to the bush. He belonged to the wandering tribe that
daily visited the camp - a tribe of wretched famine-stricken "blacks,"
whose natural hideousness and filthy appearance were intensified by the
dirty rags with which they made shift to cover their bodies. I should
never have conceived it possible that such living skeletons could exist.
Without begging from the diggers I fail to see how they could have lived,
for not a living thing was to be found in the bush, save an occasional
iguana and "bardies,*" and, as I have said, all known waters within
available distance of Coolgardie were dry, or nearly so.
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