. The boy travellers in Australasia : adventures of two youths in a journey to the Sandwich, Marquesas, Society, Samoan and Feejee islands, and through the colonies of New Zealand, New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria, Tasmania, and South Australia. AUSTRALIAN GOLD-HUNTERS. The alluvial diggings at Gympie were soon worked outj and reef,or quartz, mining followed. In fact, the reef mining began while placermining was at its height and the alluvial diggers were in the full tideof success. The placers were, and the reefs are, very rich, and many ofthe workings have paid enormously to their owner
. The boy travellers in Australasia : adventures of two youths in a journey to the Sandwich, Marquesas, Society, Samoan and Feejee islands, and through the colonies of New Zealand, New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria, Tasmania, and South Australia. AUSTRALIAN GOLD-HUNTERS. The alluvial diggings at Gympie were soon worked outj and reef,or quartz, mining followed. In fact, the reef mining began while placermining was at its height and the alluvial diggers were in the full tideof success. The placers were, and the reefs are, very rich, and many ofthe workings have paid enormously to their owners. Of course wherethere have been so many prizes there has been a proportionate numberof blanks, and there is no telling how many thousands of men have leftGympie poorer than when they came here. The town consists practically of a single street which straggles upand down for more than a mile, with here and there an attempt to run UPS AND DOWNS OF MINING LIFE. 417. A GOLD-MIXEIl S HOME. a lateral street in the direction of a mine or a crusliing-mill. Most ofthe houses are of wood, and scattered over the hills are the huts of theminers, in order that they may be near the places where they are em-ployed. This does not prevent their coming into the town in the even-ing, and occasionally making it a very lively place. In the early daysthere were the usual disorderly scenes of the centre of a gold rush;and one of the old inhabitants told us that a few months after the dis-covery became known, it seemed as though half the bad characters inAustralia had congregated there. When the alluvial diggings had been exhausted, the wandering miners disappeared and wended tlieir way to newly reported fields. The place became more orderly, and then the abandoned claims were occupied by the Chinese, the most patient workers the world ever sa\v. 27 418 THE BOY TKAVELLERS IN AUSTRALASIA. They are contented to take up Avliat white men consider unprofitable,and, consid
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