Many Are Regular Quacks, And These Seem To Flourish Best.
The
principal illnesses are weakness of sight, from the hot winds and sandy
soil, and dysentery, which is often caused by the badly-cooked food,
bad water, and want of vegetables.
The interior of the canvas habitation of the digger is desolate enough;
a box on a block of wood forms a table, and this is the only furniture;
many dispense with that. The bedding, which is laid on the ground,
serves to sit upon. Diogenes in his tub would not have looked more
comfortless than any one else. Tin plates and pannicans, the
same as are used for camping up, compose the breakfast, dinner, and tea
service, which meals usually consist of the same dishes - mutton,
damper, and tea.
In some tents the soft influence of our sex is pleasingly apparent: the
tins are as bright as silver, there are sheets as well as blankets on
the beds, and perhaps a clean counterpane, with the addition of a dry
sack or piece of carpet on the ground; whilst a pet cockatoo, chained
to a perch, makes noise enough to keep the "missus" from feeling lonely
when the good man is at work. Sometimes a wife is at first rather a
nuisance; women get scared and frightened, then cross, and commence a
"blow up" with their husbands; but all their railing generally ends in
their quietly settling down to this rough and primitive style of
living, if not without a murmur, at least to all appearance with the
determination to laugh and bear it. And although rough in their
manners, and not over select in their address, the digger seldom
wilfully injures a woman; in fact, a regular Vandemonian will, in his
way, play the gallant with as great a zest as a fashionable about town
- at any rate, with more sincerity of heart.
Sunday is kept at the diggings in a very orderly manner; and
among the actual diggers themselves, the day of rest is taken in a
VERBATIM sense. It is not unusual to have an established clergyman
holding forth near the Commissioners' tent and almost within hearing
will be a tub orator expounding the origin of evil, whilst a "mill" (a
fight with fisticuffs) or a dog fight fills up the background.
But night at the diggings is the characteristic time: murder here -
murder there - revolvers cracking - blunderbusses bombing - rifles
going off - balls whistling - one man groaning with a broken leg -
another shouting because he couldn't find the way to his hole, and a
third equally vociferous because he has tumbled into one - this man
swearing - an other praying - a party of bacchanals chanting various
ditties to different time and tune, or rather minus both. Here is one
man grumbling because he has brought his wife with him, another ditto
because he has left his behind, or sold her for an ounce of gold or a
bottle of rum. Donnybrook Fair is not to be compared to an evening at
Bendigo.
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