The Tin Ticket_ The Heroic Journey of Australia's Convict Women - Deborah J. Swiss [136]
The Roberts party slowly made their way from Melbourne to the goldfields, encountering plenty of reasons to turn their cart around. Depending on the weather, the journey took from three to four weeks over ruts, bogs, and tree stumps. The rough roads they traveled were “littered with the wrecks of expeditions gone wrong, animals that would pull no more simply left to die by the side of the road, goods piled high as merchants waited for relief, or discarded as yet one more traveler sought to lighten his load.”18
There were many “coffee-shops” and “hotels” at various intervals along the trail. These way stations, often no more than tents themselves, offered refreshment and shelter to the stream of adventurers headed to and from the diggings. In most cases, they were best avoided. Not only were prices highly inflated, but bushrangers gathered intelligence from these haunts. That friendly face across the supper table might well be holding a pistol to a head a few miles down the trail. Travelers were wise to keep to themselves, quickly set up a camp, and post a well-armed guard at night.
The journey’s most treacherous passage proceeded through the Black Forest, a thick congregation of dense ironbarks, their trunks still charred from terrible fires.19 It was the perfect spot for an ambush and notoriously ruled by bushrangers. “Here the trees grow very close together; in some places they are so thickly set that the rear-guard of the escort cannot see the advance guard in the march.”20 William cleaned his revolver, fired a test shot, and returned the dry powder to the safety of his pouch. Agnes mounted the cart and laid the rifle at her feet. Any outlaw who foolishly tested their mettle was in for a fight.
In good weather, the Black Forest danger was cleared in about a day—if a party didn’t get lost. Approaching the forest, the road diverged: west to Ballarat or north to Mt. Alexander and Bendigo. Traffic flowed one way or the other depending on rumors of gold strikes, both real and imaginary. Ludlow and her contingent had taken the northern route.
When Ludlow’s band pulled into Bendigo in 1852, it was scorched earth like nothing they’d ever seen. As far as the eye could scan, “the trees had been all cut down; it looked like a sandy plain, or one vast unbroken succession of countless gravel pits—the earth was everywhere turned up—men’s heads in every direction were popping up and down from their holes. . . . The rattle of the cradle, as it swayed to and fro, the sounds of the pick and shovel, the busy hum of so many thousands, the innumerable tents, the stores with large flags hoisted above them, flags of every shape, color, and nation, from the lion and the unicorn of England to the Russian eagle, the strange yet picturesque costume of the diggers themselves, all contributed to render the scene novel in the extreme.”21
The tent city stretching before them was a confusing and ever-changing metropolis, regulated by strict mining rules and an enforcing army. Before John Atterwell and Isaac Waters staked out a claim, they needed a license, purchased for £1 10s (thirty shillings) for a month’s digging right. On the back of their Victoria “Gold Licence,” the following rules were printed:
REGULATIONS TO BE OBSERVED BY PERSONS DIGGING FOR GOLD, OR OTHERWISE EMPLOYED AT THE GOLD FIELDS.
1. Every Licenced Person must always have his Licence with him ready to be produced whenever demanded by a Commissioner, or Person acting under instructions otherwise he is liable to be proceeded against as an unlicenced person.
2. Every Person digging for Gold, or occupying Land, without a Licence, is liable by Law to be fined, for the first offence, not exceeding £5; for the second offence, not exceeding £15, and for a subsequent offence, not exceeding £30.
3. Digging for Gold is not allowed within Ten feet of any Public Road, nor are the Roads to be undermined.