We slept under our small calico tent, and our cooking had to be done
outside. Sometimes it rained, and then we had to kindle a fire with
stringy bark under an umbrella The umbrella was mine--the only
one I ever saw on the diggings. Some men who thought they were witty
made observations about it, but I stuck to it all the same. No man
could ever laugh me out of a valuable property.
We lived principally on beef steak, tea, and damper. Philip cut his
bread and beef with his bowie knife as long as it lasted. Every man
passing by could see that we were formidable, and ready to defend our
gold to the death--when we got it. But the bowie was soon useless;
it got a kink in the middle, and a curl at the point, and had no edge
anywhere. It was good for nothing but trade.
A number of our shipmates had put up tents in the neighbourhood, and
at night we all gathered round the camp fire to talk and smoke away
our misery. One, whose name I forget, was a journalist,
correspondent for the 'Nonconformist'. Scott was an artist, Harrison
a mechanical engineer. Doran a commercial traveller, Moran an
ex-policeman, Beswick a tailor, Bernie a clogger. The first lucky
digger we saw, after Picaninny Jack, came among us one dark night; he
came suddenly, head foremost, into our fire, and plunged his hands
into the embers.
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