wnship. It is
still sufficiently light to enable me to read "Council Chambers" over
the door of a white-painted, shed-like, wooden erection of one story.
Then up the street, past the shops with their large canvas signs,
until at length we pull up alongside a wooden one-storied house,
roofed with iron, and a large wooden verandah projecting over the
pathway in front. The signboard over the door tells me this is the
Bank. I have reached my destination, and am safely landed in the town
of Majorca.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 5: Before railways were introduced, the town was a great
depot for goods going up-country to the different diggings.]

CHAPTER IX.

MAJORCA.

MAJORCA FOUNDED IN A RUSH--DESCRIPTION OF A RUSH--DIGGERS CAMPING
OUT--GOLD-MINING AT MAJORCA--MAJORCA HIGH STREET--THE PEOPLE--THE
INNS--THE CHURCHES--THE BANK--THE CHINAMEN--AUSTRALIA THE PARADISE OF
WORKING MEN--"SHOUTING" FOR DRINKS--ABSENCE OF BEGGARS--NO COPPERS UP
COUNTRY.

In my school-days Majorca was associated in my mind with "Minorca and
Ivica," and I little thought to encounter a place of that name in
Australia. It seems that the town was originally so called because of
its vicinity to a rocky point called Gibraltar, where gold had been
found some time before. Like many other towns up country, the founding
of Majorca was the result of a rush.

In the early days of gold-digging, when men were flocking into the
colony to hunt for treasure, so soon as the news got abroad of a great
nugget being found by some lucky adventurers, or of some rich
gold-bearing strata being struck, there was a sudden rush from all
quarters to the favoured spot. Such a rush occurred at Majorca in the
year 1863.

Let me try to describe the scene in those early days of the township,
as it has been related to me by those who witnessed it. Fancy from
fourteen to fifteen thousand diggers suddenly drawn together in one
locality, and camped out in the bush within a radius of a mile and a
half.

A great rush is a scene of much bustle and excitement. Long lines of
white tents overtop the heaps of pipeclay, which grow higher from day
to day. The men are hard at work on these hills of "mullock," plying
the windlasses by which the stuff is brought up from below, or
puddling and washing off "the dirt." Up come the buckets from the
shafts, down which the diggers are working, and the dirty yellow water
is poured down-hill to find its way to the creek as it best may.
Unmade