Buckland River, January 29th, 1854.

The diggers here are a very quiet and civil race, at the same time that they are a most active and laborious one. This is all wet work; and you see them wading about to the waists in water all day, as though they were amphibious creatures. I have stated that this superior character was most striking at the Ovens; and the principal part of the diggers here are from the Ovens. The men here address you courteously, though with a manly freedom that I like; but you have no vulgar insolence. You have none of them accosting you with—“Well, old fellow, how goes it?” or, “I say, old fellow, are you a sailor, that you wear blue trousers?” or, “I say, fellow, what's the clock, eh?” It is here, “Good day, sir,” and nothing more. I never received a single incivility at the Ovens, except from the Miller and his men; but I have received many a one at Bendigo and at M'lvor. Not but that there is a large population of quiet, intelligent, and respectable people at both these places; but it is their misfortune to have, or to have had while I was there, a prominent admixture of the ruder class. The only instance that I have seen here of that lawlessness which was common at those places, was last Sunday, as Alfred and I rode up to Camp for our letters.

Bendigo, the White Hills, September 27th, 1853.

So the diggers have triumphed, and the Government has recorded against itself a fresh act of folly and imbecility in its struggle with them. Perhaps in all the histories of Governments, whether imperial or colonial, there is nothing more humiliating than this last affair.

The meeting which I attended did not, as I stated, seem to make any great impression. I myself came away more conscious of the ludicrous features, than calculating on the importance of its results. But the newspapers arriving with a detailed report of the interview of the delegates with the Governor, at once roused the indignation of the whole body of diggers everywhere. There were in that report no Red Republicans calling on Englishmen, who were merely seeking redress of grievances by constitutional means, “to follow them to blood and victory.” There was no Mr. Dexter in the foreground, lauding these fiery foreigners, and defaming his own country. There was merely a simple but strong picture of a set of gentlemen, calmly, but firmly, putting before the Governor a statement of the outrages and insults suffered by the gold-digging public from his ill-selected authorities, and the sober reasons why the license-fee should be moderated; and in strange and startling opposition, stood in the same picture the Governor, telling these gentlemen, in the most blunt and uncourteous manner, that he did not believe them.

Upper Yackandanda, Jan. 21st. 1853.

After what we had witnessed of the dogging of Braidy's party, it was clear that a vigilant look-out was kept for any sign of successful prospectors on the move to get to their newly discovered grounds. We saw that it would require the greatest caution to get away without being watched and followed. As we must take our carts with us, it would be impossible to prevent leaving traces of our wheels. Our best chance, we thought, lay in drawing first to an outside, and then to busy ourselves in apparent prospecting up the creek, as if we knew of nothing better farther off. We commenced at first by removing and encamping near the miller, as he had a short time before withdrawn himself to an isolated and retired spot on the higher part of Spring Creek, and was digging there for a blind. His tent was pitched in a solitary bend of the creek with high wooded hills on each side, and he and his men were digging in the banks of the creek, with all apparent zeal. It was a picturesque spot. High banks overhung the stream on the near side; and on the other, you looked up steeps thickly covered with shrubs, and solemn with giant growth of trees. The stream ran clear as crystal; and close to the tent lay a stupendous blue-gum tree, blown down, with its mass of roots and earth reared like a wall close upon the stream; and on these sat a tame gray magpie, and a green paroquet called a leek.

Bendigo Diggings, July 14th, 1853.

Our road from the M'Ivor hither was alternately over plains and barren woodland ranges, scattered with white masses of quartz, and with the prickly acacia in flower. The roads, for the most part, were good, excepting a few miles on approaching the Campaspe. There we had several miles of the vilest crab-hole road, and a descent to the river horrid with masses of rock projecting from the hill-side. However, we bounced and tumbled over it as well as we could, and were rejoiced to find the river of the classical name so low that we could drive through without wetting the stores in the cart. This small river rises often twenty feet in a few hours, and in rainy seasons is utterly impassable. Just above our crossing-place lay a horse, drowned only a few days before, when the river was running furiously bank-full, and when the rider, endeavouring to swim him across, only escaped with great difficulty. The river runs from Mount Macedon, and is often fullest here when there has been no rain in this neighbourhood, the rain having been at the mount.

The greater part of the way from the M'Ivor to the Campaspe the country was very fine and pleasant to look at, and the weather superb. We advanced over open plains, bounded on our right by downs, green, flowing in their outlines, and as free from trees as the downs in England.