A Lady's Visit to the Gold Diggings of Australia in 1852-53

A Lady's Visit to the Gold Diggings of Australia in 1852-53

Introductory Remarks

IT may be deemed presumptuous that one of my age and sex should
venture to give to the public an account of personal adventures in a
land which has so often been descanted upon by other and abler pens;
but when I reflect on the many mothers, wives, and sisters in
England, whose hearts are ever longing for information respecting
the dangers and privations to which their relatives at the antipodes
are exposed, I cannot but hope that the presumption of my
undertaking may be pardoned in consideration of the pleasure which
an accurate description of some of the Australian Gold Fields may
perhaps afford to many; and although the time of my residence in the
colonies was short, I had the advantage (not only in Melbourne, but
whilst in the bush) of constant intercourse with many experienced
diggers and old colonists — thus having every facility for acquiring
information respecting Victoria and the other colonies.
It was in the beginning of April, 185–, that the excitement
occasioned by the published accounts of the Victoria “Diggings,”
induced my brother to fling aside his Homer and Euclid for the
various “Guides” printed for the benefit of the intending gold-seeker,
or to ponder over the shipping columns of the daily papers. The love
of adventure must be contagious, for three weeks after (so rapid were
our preparations) found myself accompanying him to those
auriferous regions. The following pages will give an accurate detail
of my adventures there — in a lack of the marvellous will consist
their principal faults but not even to please would I venture to turn
uninteresting truth into agreeable fiction. Of the few statistics which
occur, I may safely say, as of the more personal portions, that they
are strictly true.
http://adc.library.usyd.edu.au/data-2/p00057.pdf