I had to sit and listen to such like legal logic
until it made me sick, and ashamed of my species. Of course, justice
was never mentioned, that was out of the question; if law and justice
don't agree, so much the worse for justice.
Gold was next found at Turton's Creek, which proved one of the
richest little gullies ever worked by diggers. It was discovered by
some prospectors who followed the tracks which Mr. Turton had cut
over the scrubby mountains, and so they gratefully gave his name to
the gully, but I never heard that they gave him any of the gold which
they found in it. A narrow track from Foster was cut between high
walls of impenetrable scrub, and it soon became like a ditch full of
mud, deep and dangerous. If the diggers had been assured that they
would find heaven at the other end of it, they would never have tried
to go, the prospect of eternal happiness having a much less attraction
for them than the prospect of gold; but the sacred thirst made them
tramp bravely through the slough. The sun and wind never dried the
mud, because it was shut in and overshadowed by the dense growth of
the bush. All tools and provisions were carried through it on the
backs of horses, whose legs soon became caked with mud, and the hair
was taken off them as clean as if they had been shaved with a razor.
Most of them had a short life and a hard one.
Pages:
395
396
397
398
399
400
401
402
403
404
405
406
407
408
409
410
411
412
413
414
415
416
417
418
419