ves yawned in advance of a mighty
sacrifice. The work of devastation climbed up the hills, overthrowing
them piece by piece, and through the debacle the sloven creeks, filled
with yellow slurry, and thrown out of their natural courses a score of
times by the ravishers, wound their painful way. Tents, glowing whitely
under the bright sun, dotted the flats, and gathered into villages of
canvas on the sides of the hills. Here and there a flag fluttered in the
breeze, and men were everywhere--men remarkably alike in type, strong,
bearded, sun burnt, their digger's garb as monotonous as a uniform, but
picturesque and easy. Evidently little work was going forward. The
excitement of the revolt was at its height, a sense of the imminent
climax was in the air, and the men were gathered in knots and meetings
discussing the position.

As Jim and his friends came in by Specimen Hill, they saw bodies of
troopers being moved as if in drill at the camp on their left. These
operations were watched by hundreds of diggers. Further on they saw the
massed red coats of swaddies, and heard the faint rattle of kettle-drums.
The British flag floated over the camp. A mounted officer in crimson and
gold passed them, riding at a gallop, and the sound of a gunshot struck
upon their ears, a sharp note of war.

Main Road and Plank Road were well-defined streets of tents and stores.
The great majority of the dwellings and places of business were of canvas
still, but here and there a pretentious weatherboard hotel, iron-roofed,
stood proudly eminent, luring the diggers with a flaring topical sign.
Here again the way was crowded with blue-shirted men, smoking, talking,
gesticulating, never a coat nor a petticoat amongst them. There were a
good many women in Ballarat in '54, but nearly all miners' wives, little
was seen of them where the men assembled. Jim noted yet again juvenile
levity of the diggers.

The situation was serious enough in all conscience, but the great
majority of the miners refused to see it in that light. They had endured
much; they felt that it was necessary to assert their rights as men, but
the consciousness of their wrongs was borne down in a measure by the
light-heartedness that follows great good fortune. Under the influence of
a digger-drive or the stimulus of an impassioned speech they could feel
keenly; but the sun shone upon them, the virgin gold glowed in their
hands, the riot of devil-me-care existence, unchecked by soci