ir trial, and in the worst event I can go home by the next
Money Wigram."

After the lapse of two days from the date of my appointment, I was at
the Spencer Street Station of the Victoria Railway, and booked for
Castlemaine, a station about eighty miles from Melbourne. Two of my
fellow-passengers by the 'Yorkshire' were there to see me off, wishing
me all manner of kind things. Another parting, and I was off
up-country. What would it be like? What sort of people were they
amongst whom I was to live? What were to be my next experiences?

We sped rapidly over the flat, lowly-undulating, and comparatively
monotonous country north of Melbourne, until we reached the Dividing
Range, a mountainous chain, covered with dark-green scrub, separating
Bourke from Dalhousie County, where the scenery became more varied and
interesting.

In the railway-carriage with me was a boy of about twelve or
fourteen, who at once detected in me a "new chum," as recent arrivals
in the colony are called. We entered into conversation, when I found
he was going to Castlemaine, where he lived. He described it as a
large up-country town, second only to Ballarat and Melbourne. But I
was soon about to see the place with my own eyes, for we were already
approaching it; and before long I was set down at the Castlemaine
Station, from whence I was to proceed to my destination by coach.

The town of Castlemaine by no means came up to the description of my
travelling companion. Perhaps I had expected too much, and was
disappointed. The place is built on the site of what was once a very
great rush, called Forest Creek. Gold was found in considerable
abundance, and attracted a vast population into the neighbourhood. But
other and richer fields having been discovered, the rush went
elsewhere, leaving behind it the deposit of houses now known as
Castlemaine.[5] It contains but few streets, and those not very good
ones. The houses are mostly small and low; the greater number are only
one-storied erections. Everything was quiet, with very little traffic
going on, and the streets had a most dead-alive look.

The outskirts of the town presented a novel appearance. Small heaps of
gravelly soil, of a light-red colour, lying close to each other,
covered the ground in all directions, almost as far as the eye could
reach. The whole country seemed to have been turned over, dug about,
and abandoned; though I still observed here and there pools of red
muddy water, and a