"Never mind! the diggers have now a legion of friends. So I prevailed on
myself to tell, half-a-dozen times over to most of the 'well-disposed
and independent' yabber-yabber leaders on Ballaarat, how I had been robbed
at the Camp, how for my sorrows every mortal thing had been stolen from my
tent, and concluded with the remark, 'that in each case the thieves were
neither Vandemonians nor Chinese.'
"I met with grand sympathy in 'words,' superlatively impotent even to move
for the restitution of my watertight boots!
"Hurrah! glorious things will be told of thee, Victoria!
"These waterhole skippers, who afford buzzing and bamboozling when the
rainbow dazzles their dull eyes, bask in their 'well-affected' brains,
the flaring presumption that 'shortly' there will be a demand for sheeps'
heads! (Great works!) and pointing at several of us, it is given unto them
to behold with glory 'the end of men whose word is their bond!'
"(Great works!)
"Let us sing with Horace -
TUNE - Old Style.
Quando prosperus et jucundus,
Amicorum es fecundus,
Si fortuna perit,
Nullus amicus erit.
Chorus - Cives! Cives!
Querenda pecunia primum,
Post nummos virtus.
"Which in English may mean this -
'A friend in need is a friend indeed,' that's true,
But love now-a-days is left on the shelf,
The best of friends, by G - - in serving you
Takes precious care first to help himself.
Ancestors, learning, talent, what we call
Virtue, religion - MONEY beats them all.
