"At the present time," said he, "you can go between Sandridge and Melbourne for threepence or sixpence, according to the cla.s.s you select, but in the time of the gold rush prices were very much higher. If you wanted a carriage from here to the city, you would be lucky to escape for a sovereign, and a dray load of baggage drawn by a single horse would cost fifteen dollars. There used to be an omnibus line that carried pa.s.sengers for two shillings and sixpence, but it was somewhat irregular in its movements, and could not be relied on. Nowadays the omnibus will carry you for threepence.
"When a ship arrived and anch.o.r.ed in the bay the pa.s.sengers had to pay three shillings each to be put on sh.o.r.e, and very often the boatman raised the tariff to five shillings whenever he thought he could induce or compel the pa.s.sengers to pay it. The charge for baggage was a separate one, and sometimes it cost more to take a quant.i.ty of baggage from Sandridge to Melbourne than it had cost to bring it all the way from London to Sandridge, a distance of thirteen thousand miles."
"It was a golden harvest for the boatmen and everybody else engaged in the transportation business," Harry remarked.
"Indeed, it was," said the gentleman; "and a great many people had the sense to perceive that they had a better chance for a fortune by remaining right here than by going to the mines, where everything was uncertain."
"I suppose everything else was in proportion, was it not?" queried Ned.
"That was exactly the case," was the reply. "When goods were brought on sh.o.r.e they were loaded into carts for transportation to Melbourne, and the cart was not allowed to move out of the yard until three pounds sterling had been paid for taking the load to the city. The travelers protested and said they would not pay, but they generally did, as there was no other alternative. When they got to the city they found the same scale of prices.
"The poorest kind of a room without any furniture would bring ten dollars a week, and a stall in the stable of a hotel which would accommodate two men rented readily for ten shillings a night.
Hotel-keepers made fortunes, or at least some of them did, and others might have done so if they had taken care of their money. I have heard of one hotel-keeper who had his house crammed full of patrons, none of them paying less than ten shillings a night for their lodging, while he had seventy-five lodgers in his stables, each of them paying five shillings apiece.
"A great many people spread tents on the waste ground outside of the city to save the expense of lodgings. They did not succeed altogether in doing so, as the government required them to pay at the rate of sixty dollars a year for the privilege of putting up a tent. Everybody was anxious to get away from Melbourne as quickly as possible, but they underwent great delays in getting their goods out of the ships."
"I suppose you had no railways at that time to facilitate travel," one of the youths remarked.
"No; there were no railways and the only way of travel was by the ordinary route, and very ordinary it was in many places. It was not a graded and macadamized road such as you find in England, but simply a rough pathway, princ.i.p.ally of nature"s manufacture. It was full of ruts and gullies, very muddy in the rainy season, and terribly dusty in the dry times. Travelers went to the mines in all sorts of ways, some on foot, and some by ox and horse wagons, and if they had plenty of money, and were determined to have luxury and speed at whatever cost, they traveled by stage-coach. An American firm, Cobb & Company, came here in the early days and established lines of stage-coaches, first from Melbourne to the mines, and afterwards all over Australia. Cobb"s coaches are still running on some of the interior routes that are not covered by railway, but wherever the locomotive has put in its appearance it has forced them out of the way."
"I have read somewhere," said Harry, "that traveling on the road to the mines was not very safe in those days."
"That depended somewhat on the way one was going," was the reply.
"Travelers going towards the mines were not very liable to attack, as they were not supposed to have any money, but it was not so with those coming from the mines to the coast. The natural supposition was that an individual moving in the direction of Melbourne had "made his pile" and was on his way home. The country was infested with ex-convicts and men who had escaped from convict service in Australia and Tasmania. They were known as "bushrangers," and great numbers of them were along the routes to the mines. They lived in caves among the hills, or in the open air, and occasionally took shelter in out stations on sheep runs. They supplied themselves with food by stealing sheep and cattle from the ranches, and by robbing wagons laden with provisions on their way to the mines. Clothing they obtained by the same system of plunder, and whenever the haunt of a gang was discovered by the police it was almost invariably found to be well stocked with provisions and clothing.
"These were the fellows that made life miserable to the miners returning to the coast. The bushrangers traveled in gangs of all the way from five to fifteen or twenty, and sometimes more, and each gang was led by the most desperate man among them. They used to "stick up" solitary travelers, or travelers in groups of a dozen or more. They lay in wait at turnings of the road or near the summits of hills, and generally took their victims by surprise. If a man submitted quietly to be robbed, he was generally left unharmed, but if he made any resistance, he was knocked senseless or shot down without the least compunction. Sometimes these gangs were so numerous that hardly a traveler escaped them. Then there would be a lull in the business for a time and the road would be particularly safe.
"Once a week or so, gold was sent down from the mines by the government authorities; and of course it was accompanied by a strong and well-armed escort of police. Many people entrusted their gold to the escort, paying a high premium for the guarantee of safe delivery in Melbourne. A good many people used to accompany the escort for the protection it afforded, but the number became so great and troublesome that the government at length refused to permit travelers to go in that way unless they paid the same premium on the gold that they carried as was paid by those who shipped the precious metal. Not infrequently the bushrangers attacked the government escort, and on several occasions they were successful.
"It was a piece of good fortune that, as a general thing, the bushrangers were never able to agree with each other very long. After a gang had been organized and selected its leader, dissensions arose very speedily, particularly as to the division of the spoil. The leader always believed that he ought to have a larger share of the plunder than anybody else, while all the subordinate members believed just as earnestly that their stealings should be divided equally. In this way quarrels took place. The captain would be deposed and another one selected, and he in time would share the fate of his predecessors.
"Some of the bushrangers were quite famous for their bravery and daring, and they used to give the police a great deal of hard fighting. On the other hand, the police acquired a high reputation for their skill in fighting and capturing bushrangers. They were instructed to bring in their captives alive, if possible, but it did not injure their reputations at all if they killed the scoundrels on the spot. The government wanted to be rid of the rascals, and frequently offered rewards for their capture, "dead or alive."
"Whenever the bushrangers made a haul of gold dust it was divided as soon as possible, each man taking his share and doing with it what he pleased. They generally hid their booty in spots known only to themselves, and when any of the bushrangers were captured, the police usually proceeded to draw from them the information as to where their gold was concealed. Naturally, the fellows were unwilling to say, and if they refused to tell, various means were resorted to to make them give up the desired information. Singeing their hair, pinching their fingers and toes, or submitting them to other physical tortures, were among the means commonly used.
"When ordinary methods failed, a favorite device was to tie the bushranger hand and foot, and then place him on an ant hill. The black ant of Australia has a bite that is very painful, and when hundreds of thousands of ants are biting a man all at once, the feeling is something fearful. The ant-hill torture was generally successful. After submitting to it for a time, the bushranger generally gave up the secret of the whereabouts of his gold. I do not mean to say that all the police officials indulged in this harsh treatment, but it is certain that many of them did.
"It is probable that a great deal of stolen gold is concealed in the country bordering the road from Melbourne to the gold diggings which will never be found. Many of the bushrangers were killed while fighting with the police, died of their wounds, or in prison, or managed to flee the country without giving up the secret which would have enabled the authorities to find where their treasures were concealed. Occasionally one of their deposits is found by accident, but there are doubtless hundreds which n.o.body will ever come upon.
"There was a great deal of lawlessness in and around Melbourne in those days. One afternoon a band of robbers took possession of the road between Melbourne and Sandridge, and "stuck up" everybody who attempted to pa.s.s. People were tied to trees and robbed, and for an hour or two the bandits were in full possession of the road. They had one of their number on watch who gave the signal when the police approached, and thus they were enabled to get away in good time, leaving their victims fastened to the trees.
"Once a ship was anch.o.r.ed in the harbor, ready to sail for England, with several thousand ounces of gold on board. She was to leave the next forenoon, and was to receive her crew and pa.s.sengers early in the morning. There were only some ten or twelve persons on board. Along about midnight a boat came to the side of the ship, and, when hailed by the lookout, the answer was given that two pa.s.sengers were coming on board. Two men came up the side of the ship dressed like ordinary pa.s.sengers, and without any suspicious appearance about them.
"While they were in conversation with the lookout and asking about the location of their rooms, they suddenly seized and bound him, and put a gag in his mouth to prevent his making an outcry. Then several other men came up the side of the ship very quickly, and one by one all on board were bound and gagged so quietly and speedily that they could not give the least alarm. The robbers then opened the treasure-room, took possession of the gold, lowered it into their boat and rowed away. They were not on the ship more than half an hour, and as no one came to ascertain the state of affairs and give the alarm until the next morning, the robbers succeeded in getting away with all their plunder.
It was a very bold performance, but from that time such a careful watch was kept on board of the ships that it could not be repeated.
"A fair proportion of the successful miners kept their money and went home with it, but there was a large number who seemed to believe that the best use to be made of gold was to get rid of it as quickly as possible, and they found plenty of people ready and willing to help them in this work; and it was not infrequently the case that miners were killed for the sake of their gold, and their bodies disposed of in the most convenient way. Most of the men who thus disappeared had no relatives or intimate friends in the country, and consequently their disappearance caused no inquiries to be made concerning them. If the waters of Hobson"s Bay would give up their dead, and the dead could speak, there would be a long series of fearful tales."
"Those bushranger fellows must have been terrible men," remarked Harry as the gentleman paused. "What did the authorities do with them whenever they caught any?"
"They disposed of them in various ways," was the reply. "Those who had been guilty of murder or an attempt at it were hanged, while those against whom murder could not be proved were sent to the hulks for life or for long terms of imprisonment."
"What were the hulks? I don"t know as I understand the term."
"Oh, the hulks were ships, old ships that had been p.r.o.nounced unseaworthy and dismantled. They were anch.o.r.ed in Hobson"s Bay after being fitted up as prisons, and very uncomfortable prisons they were. A most terrible system of discipline prevailed on board of these hulks.
The man who established the system, or rather, the one who had administered it, was beaten to death by a gang of desperate convicts, who rushed upon him one day on the deck of one of the hulks, with the determination to kill him for the cruelties they had suffered. Before the guards could stop them they had literally pounded the life out of him and flung his body overboard."
"How long did they keep up that system?" one of the youths asked.
"From 1850 to 1857," their informant replied. "In the last-named year the practise of imprisonment on board of the hulks was discontinued and the convicts were put into prisons on sh.o.r.e. Four of the hulks were sold and broken up, and the fifth, the _Success_, was bought by speculators and kept for exhibition purposes. She was shown in all the ports of Australia for many years, and was at last taken to England and put on exhibition there. She was five months making the voyage from Australia to England, and at one time fears were entertained for her safety; but she reached her destination all right, and has probably reaped a harvest of money for her exhibitors. She was built in India in 1790, her hull being made of solid teak-wood. She was an East Indian trader for more than forty years, then she was an emigrant ship, and finally, in 1852, a convict hulk.
"The convicts on board these hulks, or at any rate the worst of them, were always kept in irons, but this did not deter them from jumping overboard and trying to swim to the sh.o.r.e. Very few of these ever succeeded in reaching the land, as they were either carried to the bottom by the weight of the irons, or were captured by the guard boats that constantly surrounded the hulks. Most of the convicts were confined in separate cells, and the "history" of each convict was posted on the door of his cell.
"Nearly the whole interior of the ship was thus divided into cells, and when candles and lanterns were removed the places were in pitchy darkness. I went on board the _Success_ one day, while she was on exhibition here, long after she had given up her old occupation, and as a matter of curiosity, I had myself shut up in one of the cells and the light removed. I told them to leave me in for ten minutes only, not longer.
"It was on the lower deck, where not a ray of light could come in, and the place where they locked me in was one of the "black holes" in which prisoners were confined from one to twenty-eight days on bread and water.
"As soon as they had locked me in and went away, I regretted that I had made the suggestion. You have heard of its being so dark that you could feel the darkness; well, that was the case down there. I felt the darkness pressing upon me, and the air was very thick and heavy. I felt an overwhelming desire to light a match, and discovered that I had no matches in my pocket.
"One, two, three, and four minutes pa.s.sed away, and I had had all I wanted. I kicked and hammered at the thick door, and when it was opened and I went out of the hold and up on deck, I was nearly blinded. How in the world a man could stay in one of those places for a single day, let alone twenty-eight days, without losing his reason is more than I can understand."
Harry asked if all the prisoners were kept in solitary cells on board of these hulks.
"Most, but not all, of them were confined in this way. There is a s.p.a.ce at the stern, and another in the center of the ship, heavily barred with iron, where those who were considered utterly irreclaimable were huddled together. It would almost seem as though the authorities deliberately put them there in order that they should kill each other, as fights among them were very frequent and not a few were murdered by their companions. They did not work, they were simply in prison, that was all.
"The punishments that the convicts received were various. They had the dark cells and bread and water of which I have told you, and then they had floggings, and plenty of them, too. They were tied up by the thumbs so that their toes just touched the deck, and they were compelled to sustain the weight of the body either on their thumbs or their toes for hours at a time. They were "bucked," "gagged," and "paddled," and "cold-showered," and treated to other brutalities which have been known in the English army and navy for a long time. In spite of their liability to punishment, many of them paid little attention to the rules, and some were continually yelling in the most horrible manner, and day and night the sound of their voices was heard.
"Over the hatchway was a wheel by which the food of the convicts was lowered into the hold at morning, noon, and night; at other times it was used for raising in an iron cage, from the lower decks, convicts who were allowed exercise, but the weight of whose irons prevented their ascending by the companionways. Many of them wore "punishment b.a.l.l.s"
attached to their irons. The punishment b.a.l.l.s and chain together weighed about eighty pounds, and frequently bowed the prisoner double.
"The heaviest leg irons weighed thirty-five pounds, and some of them forty pounds. You will readily understand why it was that men who tried to escape by swimming, with such weights about them, were almost invariably drowned in the attempt.
"A good many famous criminals were confined on board of the _Success_ and her four sister hulks. Among them was the notorious Captain Melville, who for several years haunted the country between Melbourne and Ballarat, and was credited with many murders and countless robberies. When he was finally caught he admitted that his own share of the gold he had stolen amounted to not less than two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, and he claimed that he had hidden it in a place known only to himself. For the last forty years people have been trying in vain to find out where Melville hid his ill-gotten gold. He was in the habit of riding to the top of Mount Boran, whence, by the aid of a powerful field-gla.s.s, he was able to see the returning gold miners on the road. Consequently, it is believed that Melville"s treasure must be hidden in the neighborhood of Mount Boran, but all attempts to find it have proved fruitless.
"Melville was tried and convicted and condemned to be imprisoned for thirty-two years on board the _Success_. He watched his opportunity, and formed a conspiracy with a number of his fellow-convicts to rush upon a boat and the keeper in charge of it and take possession. The plan succeeded and the escaped convicts pulled to the sh.o.r.e in safety, although fired upon by all the hulks and war ships in the harbor.
Melville was soon recaptured, and at his trial he defended himself brilliantly, relating in burning words the horrors of the penal system on board the hulks.
"The speech was published in the Melbourne papers and caused a great sensation. A great ma.s.s meeting of the citizens was held, and resolutions were pa.s.sed in favor of abolishing the convict hulks. The popular feeling aroused against them was so strong and general that, although the government had sentenced Melville to death for killing the keeper in his attempt to escape, it was compelled to commute the sentence to imprisonment for life. He was not sent back to the _Success_, but was incarcerated in the jail at Melbourne. According to the official report, he committed suicide there, but the unofficial version of the affair is that he was strangled to death by a keeper during a struggle in which the prisoner was trying to escape.
"Melville at one time had eighty men in his gang, the largest number of bushrangers at any time under a single leader. Another scoundrel who was confined on the _Success_ was Henry Garrett, who, in broad daylight, "stuck up" the Ballarat bank and robbed it of 16,000 pounds. One of his tricks consisted in wearing a suit of clothes of clerical cut, a white necktie, and broad-brimmed hat. On one occasion he walked into the bank dressed in this manner, stepped up to the safe and began to plunder it.
He was a man of good education, and varied robbery with the pursuit of literature. He used to write essays and other articles, which he sent to the newspapers, and on one occasion he wrote an essay on crime.
"One man, William Stevens, helped Melville and his gang in their attempt to escape from the _Success_. He struck down a warder with a stone-cutter"s axe and jumped overboard. He was never seen again, and the authorities were always in doubt whether he escaped or went to the bottom, the prevailing opinion being in favor of the latter result.
Another famous bushranger was Captain Moonlight, who served his time and became a respectable citizen. Another prisoner, after serving for fifteen years, was given the position of "guide" upon the vessel by her owners, and made a comfortable income by showing visitors around."