all not describe the scene as it developed itself on Sunday. It
was at total variance with the reputation Scotchmen have acquired for
the observance of that day, but in perfect keeping with the notoriety
they have gained for their love of strong drink. Monday was the
fifteenth day of the gold-fever; and, like most other fevers, it was
then at its height. Parties had been on the hill soon after the
previous midnight awaiting the dawn, resolved to be the first at the
diggings that morning, and 'have their fortunes made before others
arrived.' But the lark had not got many yards high in his heavenward
ascent, and only struck the first note of his morning-carol, when the
mountain concaves sent back echoes of music from a whole band of men,
marching at the head of a still greater number, who might have been
taken for a regiment of sappers and miners. They have come from a
distance; and, like the others who have preceded them, can have known
little or nothing of 'balmy sleep, kind nature's sweet restorer,'
unless they have taken it at church the preceding day, or in their
beds, when they should have been there. The morning has grown apace,
and shews the mountain-sides and table-land teeming with life. 'The
cry is still, they come;' and long before mid-day, it is calculated
that there are at least 1200 persons on the hill--many of them
spectators of the scene, but most of them actors in it.

To a curious observer, it was at once an amusing, interesting,
instructive, and painful spectacle. It developed character; shewed to
some extent the state of society among certain classes and
professions; and exhibited human nature in some of its peculiar and
less agreeable phases. The most striking and unlikeable manifestations
were--ignorance, credulity, superstition, recklessness, and disregard
for all that is 'lovely and of good report.' We were particularly
struck with the want of foresight, observation, and reflection shewn
by a great number of the persons concerned, and of whom other things
might have been expected. They had come to 'the diggings' without
instruments of any kind with which to bring forth the supposed gold
from its recesses; and, more wonderful still, without food to sustain
them while employed in finding it. What an easy prey these persons
would have been to any one willing to take advantage of them! They
willingly parted with much of their supposed treasure for a few crumbs
of cake from a boy's pocket, and with sti