—Pudd’nhead Wilson’s New Calendar.
Frequently, in Australia, one has cloud-effects of an unfamiliar2 sort. We had this kind of scenery, finely staged, all the way to Ballarat. Consequently we saw more sky than country on that journey. At one time a great stretch of the vault3 was densely4 flecked with wee ragged-edged flakes5 of painfully white cloud-stuff, all of one shape and size, and equidistant apart, with narrow cracks of adorable blue showing between. The whole was suggestive of a hurricane of snow-flakes drifting across the skies. By and by these flakes fused themselves together in interminable lines, with shady faint hollows between the lines, the long satin-surfaced rollers following each other in simulated movement, and enchantingly counterfeiting6 the majestic7 march of a flowing sea. Later, the sea solidified8 itself; then gradually broke up its mass into innumerable lofty white pillars of about one size, and ranged these across the firmament9, in receding10 and fading perspective, in the similitude of a stupendous colonnade—a mirage11 without a doubt flung from the far Gates of the Hereafter.
The approaches to Ballarat were beautiful. The features, great green expanses of rolling pasture-land, bisected by eye-contenting hedges of commingled12 new-gold and old-gold gorse—and a lovely lake. One must put in the pause, there, to fetch the reader up with a slight jolt13, and keep him from gliding14 by without noticing the lake. One must notice it; for a lovely lake is not as common a thing along the railways of Australia as are the dry places. Ninety-two in the shade again, but balmy and comfortable, fresh and bracing15. A perfect climate.
Forty-five years ago the site now occupied by the City of Ballarat was a sylvan16 solitude17 as quiet as Eden and as lovely. Nobody had ever heard of it. On the 25th of August, 1851, the first great gold-strike made in Australia was made here. The wandering prospectors18 who made it scraped up two pounds and a half of gold the first day-worth $600. A few days later the place was a hive—a town. The news of the strike spread everywhere in a sort of instantaneous way—spread like a flash to the very ends of the earth. A celebrity19 so prompt and so universal has hardly been paralleled in history, perhaps. It was as if the name BALLARAT had suddenly been written on the sky, where all the world could read it at once.
The smaller discoveries made in the colony of New South Wales three months before had already started emigrants20 toward Australia; they had been coming as a stream, but they came as a flood, now. A hundred thousand people poured into Melbourne from England and other countries in a single month, and flocked away to the mines. The crews of the ships that brought them flocked with them; the clerks in the government offices followed; so did the cooks, the maids, the coachmen, the butlers, and the other domestic servants; so did the carpenters, the smiths, the plumbers21, the painters, the reporters, the editors, the lawyers, the clients, the barkeepers, the bummers, the blacklegs, the thieves, the loose women, the grocers, the butchers, the bakers22, the doctors, the druggists, the nurses; so did the police; even officials of high and hitherto envied place threw up their positions and joined the procession. This roaring avalanche23 swept out of Melbourne and left it desolate24, Sunday-like, paralyzed, everything at a stand-still, the ships lying idle at anchor, all signs of life departed, all sounds stilled save the rasping of the cloud-shadows as they scraped across the vacant streets.
That grassy25 and leafy paradise at Ballarat was soon ripped open, and lacerated and scarified and gutted26, in the feverish27 search for its hidden riches. There is nothing like surface-mining to snatch the graces and beauties and benignities out of a paradise, and make an odious28 and repulsive29 spectacle of it.
What fortunes were made! Immigrants got rich while the ship unloaded and reloaded—and went back home for good in the same cabin they had come out in! Not all of them. Only some. I saw the others in Ballarat myself, forty-five years later—what were left of them by time and death and the disposition30 to rove. They were young and gay, then; they are patriarchal and grave, now; and they do not get excited any more. They talk of the Past. They live in it. Their life is a dream, a retrospection.
Ballarat was a great region for “nuggets.” No such nuggets were found in California as Ballarat produced. In fact, the Ballarat region has yielded the largest ones known to history. Two of them weighed about 180 pounds each, and together were worth $90,000. They were offered to any poor person who would shoulder them and carry them away. Gold was so plentiful31 that it made people liberal like that.
Ballarat was a swarming32 city of tents in the early days. Everybody was happy, for a time, and apparently33 prosperous. Then came trouble. The government swooped34 down with a mining tax. And in its worst form, too; for it was not a tax upon what the miner had taken out, but upon what he was going to take out—if he could find it. It was a license-tax—license to work his claim—and it had to be paid before he could begin digging.
Consider the situation. No business is so uncertain as surface-mining. Your claim may be good, and it may be worthless. It may make you well off in a month; and then again you may have to dig and slave for half a year, at heavy expense, only to find out at last that the gold is not there in cost-paying quantity, and that your time and your hard work have been thrown away. It might be wise policy to advance the miner a monthly sum to encourage him to develop the country’s riches; but to tax him monthly in advance instead—why, such a thing was never dreamed of in America. There, neither the claim itself nor its products, howsoever rich or poor, were taxed.
The Ballarat miners protested, petitioned, complained—it was of no use; the government held its ground, and went on collecting the tax. And not by pleasant methods, but by ways which must have been very galling35 to free people. The rumblings of a coming storm began to be audible.
By and by there was a result; and I think it may be called the finest thing in Australasian history. It was a revolution—small in size; but great politically; it was a strike for liberty, a struggle for a principle, a stand against injustice36 and oppression. It was the Barons37 and John, over again; it was Hampden and Ship-Money; it was Concord38 and Lexington; small beginnings, all of them, but all of them great in political results, all of them epoch-making. It is another instance of a victory won by a lost battle. It adds an honorable page to history; the people know it and are proud of it. They keep green the memory of the men who fell at the Eureka Stockade39, and Peter Lalor has his monument.
The surface-soil of Ballarat was full of gold. This soil the miners ripped and tore and trenched and harried41 and disembowled, and made it yield up its immense treasure. Then they went down into the earth with deep shafts42, seeking the gravelly beds of ancient rivers and brooks—and found them. They followed the courses of these streams, and gutted them, sending the gravel44 up in buckets to the upper world, and washing out of it its enormous deposits of gold. The next biggest of the two monster nuggets mentioned above came from an old river-channel 180 feet under ground.
Finally the quartz45 lodes were attacked. That is not poor-man’s mining. Quartz-mining and milling require capital, and staying-power, and patience. Big companies were formed, and for several decades, now, the lodes have been successfully worked, and have yielded great wealth. Since the gold discovery in 1853 the Ballarat mines—taking the three kinds of mining together—have contributed to the world’s pocket something over three hundred millions of dollars, which is to say that this nearly invisible little spot on the earth’s surface has yielded about one-fourth as much gold in forty-four years as all California has yielded in forty-seven. The Californian aggregate46, from 1848 to 1895, inclusive, as reported by the Statistician of the United States Mint, is $1,265,217,217.
A citizen told me a curious thing about those mines. With all my experience of mining I had never heard of anything of the sort before. The main gold reef runs about north and south—of course—for that is the custom of a rich gold reef. At Ballarat its course is between walls of slate47. Now the citizen told me that throughout a stretch of twelve miles along the reef, the reef is crossed at intervals48 by a straight black streak49 of a carbonaceous nature—a streak in the slate; a streak no thicker than a pencil—and that wherever it crosses the reef you will certainly find gold at the junction50. It is called the Indicator51. Thirty feet on each side of the Indicator (and down in the slate, of course) is a still finer streak—a streak as fine as a pencil mark; and indeed, that is its name Pencil Mark. Whenever you find the Pencil Mark you know that thirty feet from it is the Indicator; you measure the distance, excavate52, find the Indicator, trace it straight to the reef, and sink your shaft43; your fortune is made, for certain. If that is true, it is curious. And it is curious anyway.
Ballarat is a town of only 40,000 population; and yet, since it is in Australia, it has every essential of an advanced and enlightened big city. This is pure matter of course. I must stop dwelling53 upon these things. It is hard to keep from dwelling upon them, though; for it is difficult to get away from the surprise of it. I will let the other details go, this time, but I must allow myself to mention that this little town has a park of 326 acres; a flower garden of 83 acres, with an elaborate and expensive fernery in it and some costly55 and unusually fine statuary; and an artificial lake covering 600 acres, equipped with a fleet of 200 shells, small sail boats, and little steam yachts.
At this point I strike out some other praiseful things which I was tempted56 to add. I do not strike them out because they were not true or not well said, but because I find them better said by another man—and a man more competent to testify, too, because he belongs on the ground, and knows. I clip them from a chatty speech delivered some years ago by Mr. William Little, who was at that time mayor of Ballarat:
“The language of our citizens, in this as in other parts of Australasia, is mostly healthy Anglo-Saxon, free from Americanisms, vulgarisms, and the conflicting dialects of our Fatherland, and is pure enough to suit a Trench40 or a Latham. Our youth, aided by climatic influence, are in point of physique and comeliness57 unsurpassed in the Sunny South. Our young men are well ordered; and our maidens58, ‘not stepping over the bounds of modesty,’ are as fair as Psyches59, dispensing60 smiles as charming as November flowers.”
The closing clause has the seeming of a rather frosty compliment, but that is apparent only, not real. November is summer-time there.
His compliment to the local purity of the language is warranted. It is quite free from impurities61; this is acknowledged far and wide. As in the German Empire all cultivated people claim to speak Hanovarian German, so in Australasia all cultivated people claim to speak Ballarat English. Even in England this cult54 has made considerable progress, and now that it is favored by the two great Universities, the time is not far away when Ballarat English will come into general use among the educated classes of Great Britain at large. Its great merit is, that it is shorter than ordinary English—that is, it is more compressed. At first you have some difficulty in understanding it when it is spoken as rapidly as the orator62 whom I have quoted speaks it. An illustration will show what I mean. When he called and I handed him a chair, he bowed and said:
“Q.”
“Thank you,” and he said:
“Km.”
Then I saw. ‘Q’ is the end of the phrase “I thank you” ‘Km’ is the end of the phrase “You are welcome.” Mr. Little puts no emphasis upon either of them, but delivers them so reduced that they hardly have a sound. All Ballarat English is like that, and the effect is very soft and pleasant; it takes all the hardness and harshness out of our tongue and gives to it a delicate whispery and vanishing cadence64 which charms the ear like the faint rustling65 of the forest leaves.
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1
joint
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| adj.联合的，共同的；n.关节，接合处；v.连接，贴合 | |
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unfamiliar
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| adj.陌生的，不熟悉的 | |
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vault
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| n.拱形圆顶，地窖，地下室 | |
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densely
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| ad.密集地；浓厚地 | |
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flakes
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| 小薄片( flake的名词复数 )； （尤指）碎片； 雪花； 古怪的人 | |
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6
counterfeiting
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| n.伪造v.仿制，造假( counterfeit的现在分词 ) | |
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majestic
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| adj.雄伟的，壮丽的，庄严的，威严的，崇高的 | |
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8
solidified
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| （使）成为固体，（使）变硬，（使）变得坚固( solidify的过去式和过去分词 )； 使团结一致； 充实，巩固； 具体化 | |
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9
firmament
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| n.苍穹；最高层 | |
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receding
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| v.逐渐远离( recede的现在分词 )；向后倾斜；自原处后退或避开别人的注视；尤指问题 | |
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11
mirage
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| n.海市蜃楼，幻景 | |
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12
commingled
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| v.混合，掺和，合并( commingle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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13
jolt
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| v.（使）摇动，（使）震动，（使）颠簸 | |
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gliding
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| v. 滑翔 adj. 滑动的 | |
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15
bracing
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| adj.令人振奋的 | |
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sylvan
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| adj.森林的 | |
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solitude
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| n. 孤独; 独居,荒僻之地,幽静的地方 | |
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prospectors
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| n.勘探者，探矿者( prospector的名词复数 ) | |
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19
celebrity
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| n.名人，名流；著名，名声，名望 | |
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emigrants
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| n.（从本国移往他国的）移民( emigrant的名词复数 ) | |
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21
plumbers
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| n.管子工，水暖工( plumber的名词复数 )；[美][口]（防止泄密的）堵漏人员 | |
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22
bakers
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| n.面包师( baker的名词复数 )；面包店；面包店店主；十三 | |
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23
avalanche
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| n.雪崩，大量涌来 | |
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24
desolate
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| adj.荒凉的，荒芜的；孤独的，凄凉的；v.使荒芜，使孤寂 | |
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25
grassy
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| adj.盖满草的；长满草的 | |
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26
gutted
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| adj.容易消化的v.毁坏（建筑物等）的内部( gut的过去式和过去分词 )；取出…的内脏 | |
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27
feverish
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| adj.发烧的，狂热的，兴奋的 | |
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28
odious
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| adj.可憎的，讨厌的 | |
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29
repulsive
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| adj.排斥的，使人反感的 | |
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30
disposition
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| n.性情，性格；意向，倾向；排列，部署 | |
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31
plentiful
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| adj.富裕的，丰富的 | |
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32
swarming
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| 密集( swarm的现在分词 )； 云集； 成群地移动； 蜜蜂或其他飞行昆虫成群地飞来飞去 | |
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33
apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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34
swooped
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| 俯冲，猛冲( swoop的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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35
galling
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| adj.难堪的,使烦恼的,使焦躁的 | |
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36
injustice
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| n.非正义，不公正，不公平，侵犯（别人的）权利 | |
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37
barons
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| 男爵( baron的名词复数 )； 巨头； 大王； 大亨 | |
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38
concord
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| n.和谐；协调 | |
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39
stockade
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| n.栅栏，围栏；v.用栅栏防护 | |
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40
trench
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| n./v.(挖)沟，(挖)战壕 | |
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41
harried
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| v.使苦恼( harry的过去式和过去分词 )；不断烦扰；一再袭击；侵扰 | |
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42
shafts
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| n.轴( shaft的名词复数 )；（箭、高尔夫球棒等的）杆；通风井；一阵（疼痛、害怕等） | |
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43
shaft
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| n.(工具的)柄，杆状物 | |
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44
gravel
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| n.砂跞；砂砾层；结石 | |
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45
quartz
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| n.石英 | |
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46
aggregate
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| adj.总计的，集合的；n.总数；v.合计；集合 | |
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47
slate
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| n.板岩，石板，石片，石板色，候选人名单；adj.暗蓝灰色的，含板岩的；vt.用石板覆盖，痛打，提名，预订 | |
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48
intervals
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| n.[军事]间隔( interval的名词复数 )；间隔时间；[数学]区间；（戏剧、电影或音乐会的）幕间休息 | |
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49
streak
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| n.条理，斑纹，倾向，少许，痕迹；v.加条纹，变成条纹，奔驰，快速移动 | |
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50
junction
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| n.连接，接合；交叉点，接合处，枢纽站 | |
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51
indicator
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| n.指标；指示物，指示者；指示器 | |
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52
excavate
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| vt.挖掘，挖出 | |
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53
dwelling
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| n.住宅，住所，寓所 | |
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54
cult
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| n.异教，邪教；时尚，狂热的崇拜 | |
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55
costly
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| adj.昂贵的，价值高的，豪华的 | |
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56
tempted
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| v.怂恿（某人）干不正当的事；冒…的险（tempt的过去分词） | |
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57
comeliness
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| n. 清秀, 美丽, 合宜 | |
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58
maidens
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| 处女( maiden的名词复数 )； 少女； 未婚女子； （板球运动）未得分的一轮投球 | |
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59
psyches
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| n.灵魂，心灵( psyche的名词复数 ) | |
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60
dispensing
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| v.分配( dispense的现在分词 )；施与；配（药） | |
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61
impurities
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| 不纯( impurity的名词复数 )； 不洁； 淫秽； 杂质 | |
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62
orator
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| n.演说者，演讲者，雄辩家 | |
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63
lighting
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| n.照明，光线的明暗，舞台灯光 | |
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64
cadence
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| n.（说话声调的）抑扬顿挫 | |
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65
rustling
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| n. 瑟瑟声，沙沙声 adj. 发沙沙声的 | |
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